God is Good. All the Time.

Three words

2012-02-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

So today I was listening to Midday Connection on Moody - not a show I normally listen to, it kind of reminds me of a Christian version of The View, with a bunch of cackling hens who all talk over each other. But sometimes their discussion piques (note: not peaks - grammar police here) my interest, and today I briefly listened in.

In their jabbering, someone asked the question, "What three words describe your life right now?" I was intrigued by the very honest answers some of the ladies gave.

I remember getting the "use three words to describe yourself" question in an interview one time, and I was like, uhhhhhh....uhhhhhhh....

It's a really good question.

So what three words would I use to describe my life right now?

Structured.

Oh my word, there is zero room for spontaneity in our life right now. Every day, every hour, the same. Get up at the same time. Read the same books over and over and over at the same time. Walk at the same time. Snack. Nap. Quiet time. Lunch. Read. Nap....read the same books over and over and over...witching hour - witching hour - witching hour (that's 4-6pm)...bath, bed, collapse, repeat.

It's just the way life is right now. Levi thrives on his schedule and that's the way it is. I tried to move him off his morning nap, but he really wants/needs it still, so yep, we're still bound to a two-nap schedule. Spontaneous lunches/coffee dates/whatever are just on hold for right now.

Simple.

Very. Very. Simple. It kind of goes along with the structure. We read books. We get our jollies throwing balls down the stairs. And playing Wheerrrrrrreeee's LEVI? I say the same things over and over and over again, like, Do we stand on the furniture? NO. I retrieve the dog's ball from under the couch at least 23 times daily. Two pairs of my jeans blew holes in the knees in one week from crawling on the floor so much. I put on makeup only when it's an absolute social necessity (and no, shopping at Meijer is NOT an absolute social necessity) OR if I want some semblance of variety in my day and eyeliner would do the trick. I wear the same tshirt during the day that I wear to bed. We walk around the neighborhood and make truck sounds, repeat made-up words to each other, and...well, there's my day in a nutshell.

Needy.

Not as in, feed the poor (though you're welcome to feed me any time), but I just stand in absolute need. In being a wise wife. In disciplining my son, shepherding his heart, and being a student of his heart. In the moments when my cup runneth over with frustration. In the areas of my life right now where there is so. much. fear. that doesn't belong there. I'm just a simple wife/mom/friend with no makeup and holes in her jeans who desperately needs the comfort, direction, and rest that can only come from her Savior.

That about sums up my life right now....what are YOUR three words??

THAT lady

2012-02-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

True Confession time:

I'm that lady.

The one who stands in line at the grocery store and places copies of Better Homes and Gardens and Cooking Lite over Glamour, Cosmo, Health, and Redbook.

I'm not anti-glamorous, anti-health, or anti-cosmopolitan (whatever that might mean). I'm not even discounting the fact that those magazines actually contain helpful and interesting information that I am interested in reading as well. I don't oppose anyone who wants to buy one or all of them. I don't.

But I AM anti-half-naked. And I have a wide-eyed little boy in my cart whose eyes (in a very short amount of time here) are going to become, um, even wider (in more ways than one, might I add). Is this how I want him to see women?

Maybe someday I'll have a little girl in my cart. Is this how I want her to see herself? Enslaved to impossible standards of beauty and success? Our culture calls it liberation. But can we call it bondage?

They pick these things up at an early age. My friends who are kindergarten teachers already see little boys become riveted, transfixed, and stupefied by mothers who come to help the class with their bosoms pouring out of their shirt. Talks about modesty and respect have to happen sooner rather than later.

Already I whisper in Levi's ear when we approach a Victoria's Secret at the mall - with it's floor-to-ceiling advertisement for a push-up bra - Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart, son. He doesn't know what I'm talking about, I know that. But soon he will. Soon he will start feeling the undertow of a culture that vomits sexuality all over his face, and an industry that hopes to claim him - and make him a lifelong addict - by the age of 8.

Some days I want to weep when I see that I'm at the downstream end of Class 5 rapids, feeling like I need to paddle UP with a blow-up ring and a spoon, clutching the hand of my child. See dignity and worth in girls, my sweet boy. Daughter, clothe yourself with strength and dignity, not deceitful charm. Point it out to me when I do not walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which I have been called! Do not buy the lie that how you look, how you dress, how-to-catch-a-man...those are what you strive for.

This weekend is the Superbowl, and please bear this in mind: the largest sporting event of the year is also the largest sex-trafficking event of the year. No, not prostitutes who are "choosing" this lifestyle (and please don't think that most prostitutes choose their lifestyle, by the way, many of them are coerced, bullied, and abused into it), but most of them minors who are sold into sexual slavery and trafficked over our borders. Where there is a demand, it will be met.

It starts with a look.

And gives way to curiosity.

And leaves us stuffing our faces with the fruit of bondage. Yet wanting more.

Desire when it has conceived...

....gives birth to sin....

...which fully grown brings forth death.

And THAT is why I am "that" lady.

All in one week

2012-01-06T16:26:00.000-08:00

Monday...

...aaaaannnnd Friday.

This is seriously the weirdest winter in my life. Sled on Monday and wagon on Friday...and it's January, not March.

Yummies

2011-12-29T10:21:00.001-08:00

...so admit it, your NY resolution really IS to lose 15lbs. And eat a little healthier. Let me help you out. Here are a few fabulous recipes that either have been staples in our house, or are new ones that will NOW be staples in our house!!

Harvest Muffins (easily made gf or regular - just use regular flour if you're not gf)

This recipe comes from Wheat-Free, Gluten-Free Cookbook for Kids and Busy Adults by Connie Sarros.

I was beYOND impressed when I made these. Even gluten-free (definitely use your xanthan gum, though, if your gf flour mix doesn't already contain it) they were light, fluffy, and perfect. I was like, shazzam. So was Levi.

1c chopped pitted dates (use wet scissors for the easiest chopping)
1/2 c raisins (I got sick of chopping dates so increased the amount of raisins and decreased the dates)
3/4c water
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2c brown sugar
1/2c unsweetened applesauce
1/4c orange juice
1/4c olive oil
2t vanilla
1 1/2 t almond extract (I didn't have any)
1/2c chopped nuts (I omitted this)
2c g-free flour mixture (my fave is Bob's Red Mill all-purpose gluten-free mix)
1/4t salt
2t baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 t cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350, spray muffin tins (I brushed them with olive oil, turns out fine)
2. Put the dates and raisins in a large saucepan. Add the water, bring to a boil on the stove, boil till the water is absorbed (~4min). Remove from heat and let mixture cool.
3. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a fork till frothy. Stir in the brown sugar, applesauce, OJ, olive oil, vanilla, and almond extract.
4. Stir in the dates and raisins, stir in the nuts.
5. Add the flour mixture, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon, and stir with a rubber spatula just until the ingredients are blended (over-stirring makes for dense muffins with weird peaks).
6. Spoon the batter into the muffins tins to about 2/3 full.
7. Bake for about 15 minutes or till a toothpick comes out clean. Let sit for about 10min before removing from pans.

Tuscan Soup

from The Ultimate Guide to the Daniel Fast by Kristen Feola

Okay, if I make something like spaghetti, Levi's like meh about it. When I make this soup, he's on it like bark on a tree. Go figure.

1T olive oil
1c diced onion
1c diced carrot
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 c vegetable broth (I really like Better Than Bouillon, it's a really hearty flavor that rivals beef broth)
1c dry lentils, sorted and rinsed
1 (15oz) can cannellini beans (or garbanzos, or whatever)
1 (14.5oz) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1/2 (10oz) pkg frozen spinach, unthawed
1/2T dried rosemary
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions and carrots in olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, until onions are translucent. Stir in garlic and cook for about 30 seconds more. Add remaining ingredients, heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer for about 20-25 min with tilted lid.

Tastes great with brown rice added in. I like to serve this with a Greek salad, hummus, and pita chips.

And finally...

Chicken Nicoise

from the good ol' Betty Crocker cookbook

1 1/4 c dry white whine or chicken broth
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2c frozen small whole onions (not terribly important if you don't have them)
1T Italian seasoning
1 or 2 bell peppers, sliced
6 Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
2c hot cooked rice

1. In a 10in skillet, heat 1/4c of the wine to boiling. Cook chicken in wine about 5 min, turning once, until outside of chicken is white.
2. Add garlic, onions, seasoning, bell peppers, olives, and remaining one cup of wine to skillet. Heat to boiling, boil 5 min.
3. Reduce heat to medium, cook 10-15 min until chicken is cooked thru. Serve on rice.

Be Well in 2012

2011-12-28T10:12:00.001-08:00

Sorry I've been such a blogging slacker. Sometimes that's just the way it is.

I'm sitting here trying to be deathly quiet because I'm waiting for a little boy to go to sleep. I can hear him thumping around his bed and making quiet noises to himself, which is fine with me...but yesterday, instead of going to sleep after his little quiet playtime, he escalated into a full-out assault against his nap. I can probably count on one hand the number of times he's really come unglued that way, but when it happens, it just feels awful.

I never wanted to run a tip-toe household, and when he was a little baby that worked. I could vacuum around him, sing at the top of my lungs, and nearly land a plane while he blissfully slept. It's not like I plant myself on the couch now and wait for him to get up, but I do move around the house in stealth mode.

So many things I never thought I'd do or say. But actually, there are many things people told me I'd do that I said I'd never do, and I still haven't done them. But they'll come up. Normal ebb and flow, choosing battles and making decisions.

Speaking of decisions...how's that list of New Year's resolutions coming?

I've decided not to make any resolutions this year; but I have decided one thing...

I want to BE resolute. Own my decisions. Let my yes be yes and my no be no.

This past year I've become more and more this way. Not do things because they should be done, because other people want me to do them. It's come with needing the structure that's inherent with having a little one in the house, with looking well to the ways of my household, with being the gatekeeper of all that begs entrance: what we watch, what we hear, what we do, what we eat.

I want us to be well. Overall. Be mindful, simple, and careful. The world can carry us away with what it has to offer - things we can't afford, that suck our time, that sing our souls to complacent sleep.

A couple months ago, in my little notebook I started a list with four categories, entitled "Be Well in 2012." Catchy, I know. (Hey man, I can write decently, but creativity is NOT my suit.) They apply more to general household things, not parenting or marriage specifically. Anyway, here goes:

Spiritual

*Make God's Word a priority (as in, digging into it, continue being involved in Bible studies, work on memorizing it, etc). Here are some CD's I'd really like to get to sow those little seeds into Levi's heart as well.
*Actively try to apply Scripture to every circumstance
*Continue to make quiet time a priority (a basic rule I've applied is, as soon as Levi goes down for that first nap of the day, it's time for my quiet time with the Lord. No matter what.)

Environmental

Just keep up with all the little changes I've made over the past few years that are better for the overall environment, as well as the little environment that is our home.

*Line dry as much as possible. (You ought to see my basement. It's like passing thru a jungle when I have three loads hanging in every possible spot.)
*Detox every room as much as possible (as in, switch out products to ones that are 100% natural or homemade)
*No hoarding! Make a semi-monthly habit of recycling items, dropping them off at the mission, etc. When it doubt, throw it out...or at least give it away...
*Maintain a steady cleaning schedule (this has been the #1 thing this past year that has helped me keep my soup in a group!)

Food

*Eat as vegetarian as possible. It's cheaper overall and keeps me creative.
*No compromise on food/ingredients (in our home, that is. Whatever anyone else feeds us, we gladly and gratefully receive!). That means all organic and/or pastured meat, as much local fare as possible, and non-GMO. Yes, we spend more money on food overall, but we figure we'll either spend it now on healthier food, or later in health care costs. It's going out the door either way.
*Cut back on - not eliminate, let's face it... - refined sugars and grains, and find yummy sugar alternatives.
Seriously consider cod liver oil* (Done!! Started taking it a couple weeks ago and already see a difference in our skin!)
Research coconut oil* (done! We use it in cooking, on our skin, on Levi's diaper rashes...)

*westonaprice.org is a good resource if interested in looking them up

Habits

*Make exercise a priority in our family. I'll admit, this is way harder than when my time was almost entirely my own. Exercise has been redefined for me: several climbs up the stairs with an excited toddler who just learned to scale them...pushing a stroller or pulling him in a sled...having a dance party. But just keep moving!
*Continue to rise early. I just get more done and am more focused for the day when I get up, make the bed, and throw in a load of laundry before Levi gets up (and he's a very early riser!!!).
*Overall, we want to raise Levi (and anyone else who happens to come along, should the Lord see fit!) in a home characterized by having good habits. We'll gladly drop everything to read him a book or play, but we'll also gladly leave him to play alone so we can get something done. We want him to have fun and play, but also want him to see that work (in any form) is a gift and a blessing, and a very important part of life.

What do you resolve for this coming year? How do you want your life or household to look different, or how would you like to "tweak" it? Or do you just want to lose 15lbs and call it good? ;)

No title

2011-12-06T18:15:00.001-08:00

The other day I read a story about an Australian couple, pregnant with twins, who had decided to "selectively reduce" one of the twins because he had a heart defect that would have required multiple surgeries to correct. Well, evidently the procedure didn't exactly go as planned and BOTH babies died. They were 32 weeks. Thirty-two. Weeks. I'm still sitting here puzzled, wondering if anyone else is wondering: at what point did the choice become a tragedy?

But that's not what I'm going to write about.

Every morning I get up somewhere between 5 and 6, and make the bed as soon as my feet hit the floor. If nothing else is accomplished in my day, at least the bedroom started out in some fashion of order. I turn on the radio and half-listen to a rather mundane super-early morning program called "Haven Today" on Moody Radio.

Tuesdays are change-the-sheets days. So I get up, strip the sheets and put clean ones on before I even head to the bathroom. So this morning I do my Tuesday morning routine, flip on Haven Today...and there's a man who is being interviewed who apparently just wrote a book called "Heaven is for Real." Since I caught the middle of the program, I don't know exactly what happened, but evidently this guy's son had something horrible happen at the age of three, and it sounds like he was in some sort of coma or was clinically dead. And after the boy was revived, he started talking about....things his parents had never taught him about heaven. And Jesus. And God. It came out in snippets. He'd be playing in his room, and he'd run out to his parents to blurt out something he had seen, or that Jesus had said to him, during his "time" in heaven.

Now I have to cut out here and say that I'm very skeptical about so-called "near death experiences" where people claim to see light and walk through tunnels. It's not that I don't believe them, it's just...I don't know...it was kind of trendy for a while to make such a claim. Among other things. But Moody is very sound and choosy in the material they present on their station. I know they wouldn't just put a quack on there who claims to have seen God in a drug-induced haze.

Anyway. So I was kind of intrigued listening to this man talk about his son and the things he had seen. I was enjoying a program that I normally find to be kind of lame.

And then the program host said, "...and then he met a certain little girl. Tell us about that."

I'm going to have a hard time writing this.

One evening, the boy blurted out, "I have another sister." And he ran back to his room.

The man's wife stopped cold - what did he say?? They had never told him about a miscarriage they had had years before, at around two months gestation. The parents followed him into his room, telling him you don't just say something like that to your mom and then leave the room.

"I have another sister. She looks a lot like Cassie (their other child)." And he went on to describe how she looked, how tall she was, and things she had said to him. She was so excited to see someone from her family.

"But she already has a family there, because He adopted her," the little boy told his dad.

You mean Jesus adopted her?, his father clarified...

"No. His Dad did."

God adopted his tiny sister into his family of children - that I love to imagine at times - playing around His throne.

I had started to lose it when he started the story about "I have another sister." By this point, I was face-down and sobbing on my bed.

I still miss Levi's sister. I know Glory Baby was a "she" and most anyone who's lost a baby before you even have a chance to wrap your mind around it will tell you they know the baby's gender in their heart. It's not like I think about it all the time or dwell on it or anything like that. It's just that at this time of year - the week that it all started to unravel - the loss is just that much more apparent. I love my little boy to pieces. But I loved that baby too. And I find myself just weighted with uncharacteristic sorrow - but then I look at the calendar and think, "Is it already that time again?"

I feel stupid that I still grieve one loss, one early-pregnancy miscarriage, when so many other people have lost so much more. But grief is grief, no matter what he wears when he waltzes into your home unbidden and unwelcome. Whether it's the death of a child, a relationship, a dream...it leaves a wound that eventually heals but is still blaringly obvious to the one who bears it.

After sobbing again on my basement floor (surrounded by laundry, mind you),I went for a walk this afternoon just to do anything to shake the fog that insisted on following me all the livelong day. I began thanking the Lord for anything I could think for which to be thankful. And then I began, instead of dwelling on my loss, to pray for an armload of people I know right now who would give anything to have a child. Who would give anything to be pushing a bundled-up little boy in an over-sized jogger on a cold afternoon. People I know and love who never thought Grief would show up at their door and muscle his way in. Who never once imagined that this was a road they'd have to walk.

So you know who you are. I prayed for you today. I prayed you'd be comforted to know that your child is adopted by the Creator Himself. I prayed the desire of your heart would be answered and your womb would open to receive and nurture life. I prayed for you by name.

And I came home feeling revived. We ARE loved by a mighty God.

Mundane post #4

2011-11-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

Wow, now that I have to write only about mundane things, I have a lot more to say!!! Huh.

A couple years ago I went to a nursing conference in Phoenix with one of my friends from work. Every night as we relaxed in our hotel room we cracked up at the number of times this commercial came on for Pillow Pets. I can still sing the jingle. After three nights of listening to the Pillow Pets jingle and seeing the rapturous joy the Pillow Pets apparently impart (how's that for subtle alliteration), I was duly convinced that I needed one myself. I'm sure you've seen them. They're these stuffed animals who, when folded, have "legs" and when you unvelcro the "legs" - voila!! - they become a soft little pillow!!

Anyway, I bought Levi a giraffe Pillow Pet for Christmas. It's actually a Pillow Pet Pee-Wee - so a smaller version of one. It will fit perfectly in his mini crib. In our mini house. Anyway, I showed it to him when I found it at Meijer and he wanted to snuggle it (he coos and buries his face in stuffed animals), so we had a winner. And sadly, we won't wait till Christmas to give it to him. He's too little to know the difference, so he may as well enjoy it.

Well guess who's snuggling with the Pillow Pet now? Me. I really don't want to give it up. It's really, really, really soft and cozy. And to think that Nancy and I laughed and scoffed at the Pillow Pet commercial two years ago.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Anyway, about a month ago I had written in my little spiral notebook of randomness (prayers, thoughts, Bible verses, Bible study notes), What are my priorities and what is my purpose for today?? One thing that's really been challenging me over the past year is that tension - and I mean tension - of what's important, in what areas should we serve, in what places do we need to step down, how much is too much, how little is too little...and what it always comes down to for me is Proverbs 31:27 - How does this fit into looking well to the ways of my household?

One paradox of working in the Special Care Nursery at work is, from those who look in from the outside (proverbially, though we do have windows and people DO peer in from the outside), it often looks like we're doing nothing. From their point of view, we're sitting at our computers, actually DOING something with the baby every few hours, and then going back to our computers. What I always tell nursing students is that one of the best nursing interventions is to leave. the baby. alone. That is how a preemie is allowed to grow and develop. Me fussing with them to be busy and feel like I'm doing something is actually detrimental to the very person I'm trying to serve.

It applies at home too. The more Matt and I do, the busier we are, the more stuff we're involved in and the more we say 'yes' to people...the more our home suffers. There are weeks that we just spin...it happens about once a month or every other month...and then I get frustrated and shut the household down. It looks like we're doing nothing - the calendar squares are fairly empty, and saying no to people makes me feel guilty and silly, but in doing nothing we're doing something very significant, something that prompted us to make the decision to cut back my hours at work, to serve this very purpose: to allow the best environment for Levi to grow and develop and thrive. To keep a consistent nap routine. To follow his own quiet (or not so quiet at times) rhythm. It might seem a bit much but we have one little lamb and we're guarding the gate.

But still, guilt creeps in, and I have to keep reminding myself what our priorities are and what they're supposed to be...and what IS looking well to the way of my household? So I have to turn back to my page in my journal from a month ago and refresh:

1. To serve and glorify God, and tend to my relationship with Him. I NEED to carve out that time in the day - right when Levi goes down for his first nap, before I dive into housework.

2. To serve my husband and tend to my relationship with him. Whether or not Levi recites his letters or knows his colors before the other kids isn't the point; he needs to grow in a stable home where the marriage is a priority.

3. To serve Levi. Play with him, feed him, teach him, sing to him, read to him, provide structure and rest. He CAN play alone too. Teaching him to play alone and not need my constant attention is important too!!

4. Take care of my home. Things are washed, food is prepared, and things are reasonably in order and welcoming.

5. Tend to others. Encourage and serve them. But they cannot come before the other 3-4 things!

It looks easy on paper but is so hard to apply when you feel like it's better to do-do-do.

But sometimes NOT doing is what we SHOULD be doing.

It's still such a tension though, isn't it???

Weary of doing good

2011-11-07T07:28:00.000-08:00

Levi developed a plan recently that serves zero purpose to either of us:

A 45-minute morning nap.

I really try to make it a discipline to do my quiet time/work on my Bible study as soon as he goes down for the morning. No. Matter. What. I need at least an hour so I can do that AND get some housework done, take a shower, or whatever.

But this 45 minute nonsense doesn't exactly work wonders for me. Mama needs an hour.

Levi wasn't pleased with my method to reinforce this today. But I can tell from the moment my baby gets up if his nap was as much as he needed, or if he simply woke up in the middle of a sleep cycle and thought it was simply time to get up. I knew that if I went into his room his eyes would be glazed and nearly rolling into the back of his head, but he would be just certain it was time to get up. And then he'd be crabby for the next few hours, I would be frustrated, and then he'd be so overtired that his afternoon nap would go similarly. And then the terrible attitude would roll into dinnertime.

So I let him stay in his bed. I know he was mad. I knew the exact moments that he flung his giraffe and three pacifiers over the railing so he'd have something about which to be even MORE mad. After fifteen minutes, I went in and collected his things, gave them back, saw the glazed and rolling eyes, and told him he needed more sleep and laid him back down.

Then, he was REALLY mad.

And then he....fell asleep.

When Levi turned one a week ago, I swear a toddler-tantrum switch was flicked onto "on" and I am desperately looking for the "reset" button...to no avail. Life is frustrating for him right now - he can't talk, is on the verge of walking, and is cutting six teeth. So you can't communicate (yes, I do signs with him but it's slow in being reciprocated), can't move like you want, and are in pain. Honestly, I'd be mad too.

Galatians 6:9 has become my big-cheese verse lately. I think it'll be my life verse for the next two decades:

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

I can't tell you how many times a day now that I have to tell this to myself. It's so much easier to give in and give him the food off my plate, to get him up even though I know he needs more sleep, to pick him up and carry him with me e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e to avoid the whining. But I will reap later what I sow even now. If I'm in the habit of giving in now, I'll continue that habit. I can't take the easy road.

*Now please don't think I'm a tyrant mom. I do feel like one sometimes! But it's not like I expect him to behave like a five-year-old boy. We just try to keep boundaries and structure in our home. But there are some days when you just have to let the house blow up around you because a little boy just needs to be cuddled and comforted and rocked and read to.

But how much does that verse just apply anywhere in life? In trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle, hitting recurring issues head-on, working on a marriage relationship, parenting....

...don't become weary of doing the right thing. Because you WILL reap a harvest. Don't. Grow. Weary.

Mundane post #3

2011-11-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

Are you tired of mundane posts yet????

My heart is so incredibly burdened right now over a number of things - people who are very close to me - and either I will implode, or I will write another mundane post.

So the other day my gaze swept across our landscape (all 1/4 acre of it) and I hearkened back to last year right at this time - well, days before I had Levi - and thought, "This yard will NOT get raked this year."

And sure enough, it didn't.

So this week I thought to myself, "Self, you need take thine backside out and rake."

But I did NOT have time. And I was trying to figure out WHEN I (or Matt) would have time, and as I counted ahead for the next several days, it was becoming clear that the leaves may stay right where they are.

A few hours later, there was a knock at the door.

Two kids, clearly a brother and sister, probably about 10 and 12 years old, stood on my front porch with RAKES.

RAKES, I say.

At first I almost didn't answer the door because I was in an enormous hurry to get to something, and I had no time for underage Jehovah's Witnesses, scouts selling more popcorn, or whomever. But then I saw their rakes. And I answered the door.

"We're, um, raking yards to raise money for (this is where I'm waiting to hear a spiel about a mission trip, orphanage in Africa, local school or food pantry) a ferret."

A ferret?

"Do you want us to rake your yard??"

At that moment, I pictured myself standing in front of a blue-eyed, blond-haired little boy in about ten years, my eyes closed, pinching the bridge of my nose, saying, "If you can come up with a way to pay for (whatever it is that I would rather die than have in my house but this is a great learning opportunity about responsibility), you can get it." And then hoping against all hopes that no one will turn my little blue-eyed blond down as he goes door-to-door with a rake.

My other thought was, Does a bear poop in the woods? Heck YES you can rake my yard!

I asked what they were charging. The 10-year-old boy cast an entrepreneurial eye around our front yard and said, "Seven dollars?"

Me: TEN! Do you take a check?

And then this kid and his sister raked. our yard. And they totally spanked it. Like, there was not a leaf in sight. Granted, the yard's covered in leaves again two days later, but it's better than it would be. And some kids are gonna get their ferret.

So there you have it. Another slice of a mildly mundane life.

Mundane post #2

2011-10-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Nothing emotionally and physically exhausts me more than hearing my baby cry. Days like this come so rarely and I count the minutes till Matt gets home...and I can't imagine what it's like to be a single parent, or have a kid with issues that make them scream all day.

I think the combination of him teething and getting a new cold now just push him over the edge. Germs come in without knocking, I've noticed. They brazenly enter unannounced with their muddy shoes on and expect me to clean up after them. We wash our hands meticulously, he's getting breastmilk, we don't go out-out that much, he's not in daycare, and has hardly been in the church nursery in the past few weeks. I never wanted to be that mom with the kid who has a glazed donut for an upper lip, and here I am. Chasing after a toddler with a piece of Kleenex.

And over and over to myself I say, This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.

There are days that I want to be doing something really spectacular. Thinking smart thoughts about smart things among smart people. Make no mistake, chasing a giddy baby around the house with a string-pulled tooty train (thank you so much Kelly!!!!) is where I'd rather be than anywhere else...but it's easy for discouragement to creep in. I know what I'm doing serves such a great purpose - just providing Levi with consistency and routine and security and comfort is exactly what he needs to grow and thrive. I know I'm sowing little seeds of purpose and Truth into his little heart.

But when he's cutting six teeth at once and has a runny nose and a raw bottom and is sobbing in his crib...I kinda want to join him.

The other day I went to a friend's house for tea with another friend. We've been planning this day for the past couple of months, just a chance to see each other since I never see them at work anymore. These friends aren't old enough to be my mom (well, technically they could be; they would have been teenagers, and that's not so unusual anymore, let me tell you), so I guess I'll say that they're like my big sisters. So we planned to have tea, and I have to leave them unnamed and the pictures to myself because one of them is quite interested in protecting her professional image (guffaw). Why, you ask? Because one of them (the professional one, mind you - I know you're reading this, friend) calls me like five minutes before I leave the house to pick her up to tell me I needed to come RIGHT NOW because she had an idea. So I throw Levi in his car seat and leave without even putting on my shoes. Upon my arrival at her house, my professional friend greets me at the door dressed in what I can only describe as a dress that once was a flamingo. She pulls me up the stairs, grabs my bewildered baby, and shows me MY dress: a sparkly blue number with a tiered ruffled black skirt. Had I been able to pull my hair in a side ponytail, I would've been a spittin' image of Deb from Napolean Dynamite. With hot pink knee-high tights (why did she have these in her drawer?). Alarmingly, the dress fit.

And that is how we showed up at tea. Not to be outdone, my other friend ran upstairs to put on a leopard-print dress over her running tights. We had a dance party to Toby Mac (my poor bewildered Levi clutched his stuffed giraffe) before dining on donuts, cookies, Cheetos...and, of course, tea.

Our lovely tea party spread

I would love to show you the picture I have of the three of us, but sure don't want to wreck our very, very professional image. ;) I'll just let you wonder exactly who it is that is so much fun.

But it's good to have big sisters like that.

I guess things aren't so mundane after all. :)

Mundane post #1

2011-10-21T12:39:00.001-07:00

I know he's barely one year old, but he can totally level me.

It's been gray this week. Rainy. And we've been....icky sick. He's been cutting what I thought were four upper teeth, but upon closer inspection it almost looks more like maybe six. I think he's in a growth spurt. And he's trying to learn how to walk.

That's a lot for one 20lb person and a tired, stir-crazy mama.

This morning he came undone. He took a sad little one-hour nap and I barely had a chance to get in some quiet time and start something in the crock pot for the weekend (working! shuttle launch!). And I mean, barely start cutting the stuff up to put in the crock pot. He's been clingy this week, and not that I really blame him. So of course he was in no mood to play by himself while I put together a meal. I set him up in his high chair with a snack and his sippy. He took two bites and started to yell at me again. A little blond 20lb dictator. He spilled his milk down his shirt. The milk I struggle to produce anymore. Still yelling, spitting out his food. Oh my word. In my mind I'm yelling SHUUUUTTTT UPPPPP!!!!! But I sing hymns instead because that seems a little kinder. But I still feel like a louse because I really want to tell my poor baby to, well, shut up.

I really wanted to call my friend. She beat me to it. Her morning was even more award-winning (zero thanks to the GI bug we shared with her kid). Misery really does love company, because I admit my spirits lifted. She also reminded me that Levi's teething. Oh yeah. I hold him, the phone, and draw up some ibuprofen and squirt it in his mouth with one hand, and he happily receives it. Thirty minutes later he's a new kid.

Usually naps are fairly smooth around her, but not so much today. He sobbed - deep, gulping sobs - like I had locked him in a dungeon (with four pacifiers, his giraffe and three beanie babies) and thrown away the key. Thrice I pulled him out to comfort him and thrice I returned him, and thrice he came unglued.

What happened to my easy baby??? I know this is nothing compared to some people's normal day, but Levi is not this...this...clingy, fussy, or any other form of -y.

He slept thirty minutes and it all started again.

I fed him his bottle. He gulped it like it was going to grow legs and walk away.

And then, for the first time since he was about four months old, he turned to me and plopped his head on my chest and laid there, eyes wide open and quiet, for about fifteen minutes. I rocked my baby - no, my little boy, now - in the quiet of (another) gray day. Did you hear that? It was the world righting itself again. All he needed was something for pain, something in his tummy, and his mama to rock him for a few minutes.

Then he pulled himself up, looked me square in the face, grinned, and slid off my lap. And that was that.

He's been more himself than he has in the past week ever since. He chowed down three quarters of a banana (yes, on the heels of an enormo bottle) while I ate my (very late) lunch, and then we walked around the neighborhood and waved at cars.

And now he's back down for a nap. No fanfare, no drama, no to-do.

The stew's in the crock pot. The diapers are washed and folded. Levi's veggies are steamed.

The preparations are almost complete for takeoff.

I don't know what just happened, but apparently Levi feels better and that's all I care about. :)

Profound? Or profundly mundane?

2011-10-20T16:35:00.001-07:00

I have no idea what I'm going to write. But I'm sitting alone in a busy coffee shop and it's way too cliche...I absolutely *need* to write something.

I don't blog very often in part because I feel like I should have something terribly profound to say. And lately...well...right now I can rattle off forward and backwards the order of the animals in "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" Unless you're in the learning-colors-and-animals set, substance is lacking. Anyway, I really enjoy reading the "mundane" things that other people write on their blogs. I just like knowing the little day-to-day things. So maybe you do too?

So I made the mildly catastrophic mistake of blinking, evidently. About two days ago I was holding a newborn and singing him Christmas carols late into the night. He's not walking yet but he just this evening started walking while holding onto one of our hands. Not both hands, but one hand. Side-by-side. I followed him and Matt on this new venture tonight while they were heading into his room to get ready for bath time. Daddy and little boy hand-in-hand, side-by-side.

A few months after he was born I was commonly asked what surprised me most about being a new mom. My first answer? Guilt. Not sleepless nights, not how much they cost, not how fast they grow. Guilt. How on earth is it that from the moment we see the two lines on the pregnancy test, we feel that we can be personally held responsible for just about everything that could potentially go wrong?

Second answer: judgment. I'm profoundly astounded at the judgment that moms pass on one another. I'm right in the throng with them, so let me be clear that no matter how hard I try to convince myself I'm not nearly as judgmental as the rest, I am. Perhaps moms have always been judgmental of how others' parenting styles are somehow inferior to their own, but with the buzzing and ongoing conversation of Facebook, Twitter, and blogs (mommy blogs, oh my), it seems a little more in-your-face than I imagine it was in previous years. People can now loudly state their opinion in the form of "shared" articles and posts about sleep methods, feeding, immunizations, discipline, and whatever else can possibly come up in the world of parenting. And I think, yikes man. Please don't tell anyone that our baby sleeps in his own crib, in his own room (heck, downstairs from our room), I've pumped for nearly a year now but only given him breastmilk in a bottle, sometimes we let him cry it out (within reason, I feel I should clarify), and he gets his shots. All of them. On a traditional schedule. We've never worn him or co-bedded with him, and I'm probably not the gentlest mom on the block. (I'm not here to dog those things, I'm just saying that's not what we choose to do.)

But we seek to be a student of his heart every day. And I beg God to fill in the spots where I lack. And to help us pour Truth into him.

Anyway, moving on. We were sick this week. For Levi, I tried to pass several things off as teething. When I started having the same symptoms, I was pretty certain I was not teething as well. Matt left on Tuesday morning with my assurance that Levi and I would lie as low as possible for the day, but he need not worry about us. Fast forward, oh, five minutes, and Levi's looking at me with mild alarm while I grip the counter with nausea (stop thinking what I know you're thinking, because that's unquestionably NOT what it was!). And then his banana made an encore appearance. Yeah no, this was not going to go well today. A couple of episodes later, Matt texted, "Are you sure you don't want me to come home?" He was in the parking garage in Grand Rapids. I caved. He came home. My hero!! Later, he said, "Man, it's scary when you get sick." I get it. The universe pretty much tips on its axis when Mama is sick.

But we're better now and the Gouveia universe is back in order - and it's well sanitized.

We had a birthday party for Levi a couple weeks ago (though his birthday isn't till next week). He slept through half of it. I'll post pics soon!!

Well, there's the semi-mundane for you!! I have now slurped the last few drops of my latte smoothie, pretending to blend in with the college students and not look too 30-something-married-mom-ish, but probably my hundred-year-old refurb laptop is the first dead giveaway. I'll try to be more consistent with blogging the profound AND the mundane. Because even mundane life is profound. Or profoundly mundane? Whatever the case may be, it's life and I should share it more. :)

Praying God's Word

2011-09-30T06:12:00.001-07:00

I have a good and provoking post percolating in my head, but Levi's down for a good nap and I gotta boogie this morning with some stuff to get ready for the weekend (working this weekend! Prepare to launch the space shuttle!), so I don't have time to flesh it out right now. But I do want to pass some words along...

Several months ago I listened to a program that was discussing the power of praying God's Word over our families. I often find myself stuck on knowing what to pray specifically for Levi, Matt, or anyone else for that matter. When I say, "Do your will, Lord," what exactly do I mean by that? Fortunately, His will is plain to us in his Word, and praying scripture is as powerful as you can get!

This past year I've focused on praying for Levi's mind, and dug out some verses to pray specifically for him. I can type those out later if anyone's interested. This year I'm going to focus on praying for his heart and feet (I just learned in a study that I'm doing the strong connection between our hearts and feet! Where our hearts are, our feet will go there...).

If you're a parent, pray these for your children and spouse. If you're not, pray for yourself or choose a niece or nephew to cover in prayer. Or whomever. You get the gist.

So I'll pass these verses along, and feel free to print them out and add your own - but let me know what you add, because I'll want to add them too!!

Psalm 44:18 - Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way.
(If you've never prayed this way, I would pray, for example, "Father, I pray Levi's heart will always be turned to you, and that his steps will not depart from your way.")

Psalm 25:15 - My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. ("...and that his eyes will ever be toward you. I pray his feet will be freed from the entanglement of sin." And so forth.)

Joshua 22:5 - Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that...the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Ezekiel 36:27 - And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Jeremiah 31:33b - I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Proverbs 4:23 - Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life.

Psalm 86:11 - Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.

Proverbs 23:15-17 - My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad. My inmost being will exult when your lips speak what is right. Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day.

Gotta boogie now!! Have a great Friday!

Guess who's 11 months!!!!!

2011-09-29T17:39:00.001-07:00

Is it possible? Is it really possible? That our baby isn't really a baby anymore...he's becoming a toddler??

In case you've been wondering why I'm pretty short on pictures in the past couple of months, here's why: he doesn't stop moving long enough for me to take one. Most of what I take now is videos, and I can't get FB to upload them, which is too bad because they're pretty funny.

He cruises furniture but he doesn't walk yet...EXCEPT behind this little push-cart toy that our neighbor gave him as a hand-me-down. That is how we spend our day now - careening around the house and terrorizing poor Molly by plowing into her...repeatedly. He walks up and down the sidewalk, the driveway, around the block, you name it. I'm tempted to take him to the poor little Westshore Mall (read: always empty) and just let him go.

He eats like crazy. Still gets two big 9oz bottles a day but takes a sippy at meals with his array of veggies, beans, and chicken. He's been intensely interested in my water bottle with bite-valve straw, so I bought him his own water "bottle" with a straw. (If you know me and Matt, you know you'll almost never see us without a water bottle. Levi needs one too!!) He loves it. He cruises past it (see above paragraph), stops, backs up, plops on the floor and takes a swig, pulls himself back up and sprints on. I introduced whole milk at dinner for the first time this evening and he sucked it down. Organic local pastured cow. Good stuff, baby.

He's crazy for his daddy. He won't SAY "daddy" (we say, "Say da-da" and he looks at me and says, "ma-ma" - *heart melting*) and reaches for him as much as he reaches for me. I love that. They have their fun "boy time" in the evening playing while I clean up after dinner (ta-rust me, I treasure the time alone!), and Matt gives him his bath and bottle before he goes to bed. They have a special night-night wave they do at each other as I carry Levi off to bed.

I love that he's never had stranger-danger. Yet. He'll go to anyone. He might not SMILE about it, but he'll go with them. And play with them. He has a bestie: his buddy Josiah. Josiah's mom Mary watches him while I'm at work, and we trade off days so we can each have a bi-monthly day "off." My prayer is that Josiah and Levi will be like Jonathan and David in the Bible. Josiah's eight months older than Levi, but as Levi grows the gap between them is narrowing. When Levi spends the day with Josiah he nearly invariably hits a milestone within the next few days, he wants so badly to be like a big kid. :)

I could go on and on for days about why I'm crazy about him. His little happy dance in the morning when I go in his room singing the little "Good Morning" song I made up. How he loves his stuffed giraffe and stuffs it in his face because he's so happy to see it. How he pokes and prods at Molly. How he has zero fear of the vacuum cleaner. How he chortles when he laughs. How he pulls at my nose and cracks up. How he waves at every car and bicyclist when we're out on a walk.

Our baby. Our little boy. Our son. How Mama and Daddy love you. Happy 11 month birthday, Booboo.

These things are always harder than they look...

2011-09-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

I think in a world where we cherish ourselves far more than we cherish others, this might be a good challenge. I have no idea what it'll entail, but I'm sure that if you're single you can probably tweak it so you are loving and serving friends and family. Join me?

Grocery Store Gratitude

2011-09-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

A trip to the grocery store totally busted up my groove today. It was not what I had in mind at all. I wanted a relaxing day at home where I'm bustling around getting ready for work this weekend (which feels somewhat akin to the launch of a space shuttle - diapers washed, laundry put away, food prepared for Daddy and Baby, stuff put away, backpack and lunches packed...).

And then I got totally derailed. My plan was to make an easy Gouveia-staple-standby. But I discovered I had about two grains of brown rice left (critical to said standby). I did a little mental temper tantrum. This was my last-resort dish. Now I *had* to go to Meijer. This was NOT what I had in mind. Now my whole day was messed up, I was going to get less done, be scrambling around, I really wanted to take Levi to the park...

Wait a sec. I quickly remembered the article I recently read about the famine in Africa where mothers are having to make the unthinkable decision to leave starving children sleeping under a tree - to die - because they have to keep moving toward where there is the hope of food. The book I just finished reading about human sex trafficking that discussed the number of families who feel they have no choice but to sell a daughter into prostitution to support the rest of the family.

These people would give anything to be me. To have the biggest problem in their day be that they have to go to this enormous box filled with food. To be kind of in a pouty mood because they have to clean a house when what they really want to do is read a magazine. They would give anything to have an 1100 square foot...mansion, to them.

I was suddenly humbled with gratitude. I get to go to the grocery store! I get to clean my house! Thank you, Lord! What a gracious and undeserved gift!

Proverbs and a buggy-eyed Bible

2011-09-08T06:23:00.000-07:00

I have this little kid's Bible for Levi. At first, I had the board-book version of it but was mildly annoyed at how watered-down it was. I know, he's a baby. But still. If only Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology came in a board book! I can see it flying off the shelves.

Anyway, so I got the next step up, the toddler-ish version of the baby Bible, and while all of the characters are buggy-eyed, bearded, doofy-looking men wearing dresses with ropes around he waist, it's an improvement. But the pages are regular pages, pages that will get torn and chewed and gummed, so the little Bible sits in a high place and wasn't getting read.

Aha!!! But there's one time that I can read to Levi from his buggy-eyed, doofy-dude Bible, and it's while he's eating. He has no choice while he's banging his sippy and shoving mango and banana chunks in his mouth but to listen to me!! And he can't reach out and rip the pages (although, is it just me, or do babies' arms grow about seven feet when they're sitting at the table???).

So every morning, he "listens" to me while I read a chapter out of Proverbs (the corresponding chapter with the day of the month that it is...so yesterday was Proverbs 7 because it was September 7th. I actually found myself explaining to him what an adulteress is...in very, VERY simple terms, mind you: "Levi, that is a woman who makes very, VERY unwise choices..." We'll leave it at that for now). And then we read a chapter from his little cartoony Bible. He really seems to like those pictures.

I know he's a baby. I know it'll be a long time before what I'm teaching him soaks into the bottom of his tender little heart. But I also know it'll be sooner than I even know. He picks up on more than I even know right now. I'm astounded that when I ask him, "Where's ______?" he immediately looks at what I'm talking about...and it's not exactly a word I say to him over and over and over again, trying to produce this result. He imitates sounds we make. My point isn't that my kid's a genius...he's a regular baby who is soaking the world in around him like a SPONGE - and that's my cue to be very, very intentional about what he's soaking in.

And what I am soaking in. What my mind marinates in, that's who I become. That's what I emulate for a world - and a small pair of bright blue eyes - that is watching. What I put in my ears and in front of my eyes are what goes in that...marinade, if you will. Lord, put apathy to death in my heart.

I want my son to know - and I want MY heart's resolve to be knowing - that wisdom is more important than being smart or successful or wealthy.

And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways...for whoever finds me finds life, and obtains favor from the Lord. (Proverbs 8: 32, 35)

Welcome, September

2011-09-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

Good morning.

Is it a good morning for you?

Are you a mom who is terribly relieved to be sending your kids back to school? Or are you sobbing because your kids are going back to school? Or starting their first day of school? Are you a homeschooling mom who is like WHAT am I DOING? as you lead your little lambs? Is it another day as usual as you head back to work from a glorious, end-of-the-summer holiday weekend?

Do you love fall as much as I do? Do you just love the way the light bends a little bit differently through the trees, reassuring you that there are still some remnants of summer left (only a few!), but the colors will change and soon give way to....snow? Do you welcome September like you welcome a dear friend, with spicy baked-goodie-smelling candles, throw blankets, and dust off fthe crock pot?

I love fall. It's like one big sigh of relief.

It's also a reminder that there's work to do. School's back in session, routines are re-established. The sand is shaken out from between our toes and summer is packed away. I think even more than New Year's, this is the time of year that we decide, This is the way I want life to look for us this year....

How do you want life to look in your home this year? Whether you're single or married, kids or no kids, you've got some vision of the home you want to establish and the sphere of influence you want to have.

On the practical side of things, I have my projects...

-weed the front (seriously, if you've seen our front "landscaping," even the weeds are embarrassed to be a part of it) and make it look divinely welcoming with mums and pumpkins and an inviting fall wreath

-clean up the basement - I plan on implementing a 10-minute-dejunkify plan on a daily basis so it's not so daunting. When my surroundings are in order, I somehow feel better emotionally and spiritually

-paint and tastefully decorate our upstairs - if you've seen it, you know it needs it. If you haven't seen it, there's a strong and compelling reason for that.

Personally and spiritually, I have projects as well.

I want to grow in wisdom. Daily I pray for my son to become a man who will be a man of discernment, who can plainly see truth from a lie. Who will speak truth and encouragement. Well, if Levi's going to be such a man, he needs a mom who is seeking the Lord on the same things. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise....There is a lot of foolishness around us being marketed as great wisdom.

I want the fruit of kindness to be on my tongue. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. I've been camped on Ephesians 4 and 5 all summer and praying it continually. There's a lot of snark, complaining, bitterness, and rudeness in our world today. What more counter-cultural thing to do than to just control our tongues? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks...What comes pouring out of my mouth is evidence of what is in my heart. Lots to work on there.

I want to wisely use my time. I want to abolish laziness. And look well to the ways of my household. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time...

Finally, I want to grow in security, knowing who I am in Christ. You know that Proverbs 31 lady? Yes, she's amazing. She's an amazing mom and wife, an amazing seamstress, and amazing business woman, makes amazing financial decisions, is in great shape, never sleeps...but my favorite part about her, the part I REALLY want to have? Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. Strength and dignity. Who doesn't want to be a strong and dignified woman? Who is so sure of who God made her to be, is SO strong and dignified, she just looks at life and is like, *BRING it.*

So welcome, September!! We have a lot of work to do!

PS - I have a new favorite blog (link below). So favorite that I can't wait to fire up my computer in the morning and receive encouragement. If you scroll to the left hand side of it, there's an icon for a housekeeping schedule, and I'm using that as my basic template for keeping up with my house. You might like it too.

I've linked this post on Time-Warp-Wife for {Titus 2}SDays - sit down with a cup of coffee sometime today and have an encouraging read with other bloggers!

Eating an elephant

2011-08-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

My basement is a flippin' disaster.

I can't remember the last time I washed or vacuumed out my car.

And I haven't blogged in a super-long time.

What do all of these have in common??

My basement, my car, and my mind are on overload. The basement is so loaded with...stuff...and I *need* a day without dog, baby, or the need to cook dinner to really storm it. But currently, the mess paralyzes me. I know you only eat an elephant one bite at a time, but have you SEEN my elephant? It has a lot of grizzle.

One of my friends calls her car a "purse on wheels." So true. Do you ever really clean out your purse? And if you do, does it stay that way? Mine neither.

And my mind? So full of things to think about and write about. The list is so long. So long that I'm paralyzed of my ability to just sit down for a few minutes and compose a post. My blog is my sanity. I love to write. I want to write about my favorite time of day: right now. Levi goes down for his morning nap (and after a few test-throws of his pacifier and stuffed giraffe, realizes it really is time to sleep), and I throw open the windows, steep my rooibos tea, and sit down with my Bible. Without this time I fall apart and am far less of the me I want to be for the entire day.

I want to write about the biggest thing about motherhood that surprises me: Guilt. And judgment. If you're a mom and you're reading this I really don't need to embellish on either word because I know you've already written your own post about it in your head.

I want to write about how I long for Jesus to come back. Right now. There are so many ways this world leaves me longing for my heavenly home. I heard an analogy during the Bible study I just completed this summer - the world we live in is just a shadow of the reality going on around us, completely unseen. Like a baby growing in his mother's womb, life just doesn't seem like it can get any better. Why would he want to leave this amazing place where all of his needs are met? But oh, little one, little do you even KNOW what awaits you on the other side!!

I want to write about marriage. I know I'm still a newlywed for all intents and purposes (but five years already in a month!!), but the longer I'm married, and the more my friends and I dig more deeply into what's really going on in our lives...well, there are few people reading this who would not relate to this statement: When we said for better or for worse, we had no idea that the better would be so much better than we imagined...and the worse, so much worse than we imagined. And that's the point of the covenant. I just started reading This Momentary Marriage by John Piper. I think it'll be a butt-kicker. I realize more and more every day it's just not about me. It's not about me. It's not about me.

I still want to write about the issue of pornography. That's a toughie, for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.

I want to write about my dear Levi. How just typing his name brings tears to my eyes because I love him so much. And he's turning into a little boy, no longer my little baby. Oh, how I pray for his heart...his mind...his eyes, ears, hands, knees, and feet. We're already starting to wage our little mini-battles, and even in those little things I pray daily for the Lord to make me a student of my son's heart. What is the most loving way to discipline him and instill in him (yes, even now!!) that self-control and obedience are marks of how we love the Lord - and not in a legalistic and Phariseical way? Throwing a(nother) fistful of food on the floor while he looks me square in the eye is a laughably small battlefield. But a battlefield nonetheless. My friend and I were laughing on the phone last night about how in fifteen years we'll be saying to each other, "Remember when our biggest problem was throwing food?"

Thankfully, right now our biggest problem is throwing food...and the battle over the dog dishes has waned. Next week it'll be something else entirely.

Well, my down-time is winding down and I'm refreshed. Are you? And one teeny piece of my elephant has been eaten. The basement will have to wait.

Souls

2011-08-03T11:02:00.000-07:00

I watched Soul Surfer with a friend yesterday. It made me bawl.

One particular scene cracked open a dam that I had been holding back for a little bit, allowing my brain to process only a few pieces at a time. Trying to figure out if what happened mattered to me a little bit, or a big bit. Sounds, bright lights, hushed urgency...knowing the outcome as soon as the scene started, but still playing my part. It's not something I haven't dealt with before more times than I can really count now. But still...we're souls, not machines.

But I try to function like a machine sometimes. Don't you? Keep-it-together-keep-it-together-keep-it-together. Move on to the next task, pack away the thoughts and emotions, someone else needs you now. You might not ever have to do what I've had to do on those days, but your variation on the theme is no less burdensome.

My Lord, my kind Savior, will chisel away the little bits one at a time, lending me His perspective, letting it leak out little cleansing drops at a time.

I tiptoed into Levi's room that night...like I always do, just to check on him before I go to bed. Rested my hands lightly on his back to feel his still, quiet, peaceful breathing. Exhaled for the millionth time my gratitude. Other moms were in their beds that night, pressing their own hands to their eyes and hearts because their child's breath is no longer. Or never was. Never before am I so aware of this. My hands - the very ones that so often have in vain attempted to course life back into a tiny body - were hovering over a living, breathing, sleeping soul. My flesh and blood.

He's over nine months old now. My Glory Baby would have been a year old a couple weeks ago. Two lives, one captured already in eternity, only knowing life before the Throne of Grace. The other heart mine to train up for eternity. Both are exactly where they need to be, and I'm so grateful.

Eight and a half months!

2011-07-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

He makes me laugh so hard sometimes. I can hardly fathom where the time has gone. People are already starting to ask me when the next one is coming!!!! Um, I just barely unpacked my suitcase from bringing the first one home. It'll be a bit, folks!

He just started fully crawling this week. And trying to get up the stairs. Tackling the dog's food and water dishes. He has shout-offs with Daddy. Pulls himself up on furniture, window sills, whatever he can pull up on. He feeds himself sometimes (it's a messy enterprise, but I'm pretty impressed with how much he actually gets in his mouth). It's nice to just steam some food, mash it with a fork, put it in one of his suction cup bowls (thank you Kimber!!!! Best invention ever!!), and watch him gorge himself. If I do something, like bang a block on another toy, and hand it to him and say, "You do it!" he'll copy me. Just this morning he started putting his hands together in a sort of clap, but it also looked a whole lot like the sign for "more" that I've been trying to teach him. He was very enthusiastic about it, so like I said, no idea if it was attempting to clap or the sign, and I sure don't know what he wanted more of if it WAS the sign!! He understands "No-no" quite well...not that he doesn't go right back to whatever he was told not to do, but there are times when he'll go after the forbidden thing (read: dog dishes), get a firm "no-no, Levi Matthew," sit back and reconsider, and turn around and do something else instead. The first of many, many, manymanymanymanymany things to sow into this little person!!! He opens and shuts doors (using the door jam, if the door's not shut all the way), and will slam the fridge shut if I open it and he's nearby.

He makes me laugh so hard sometimes. Like when he's attacking his fuzzy picnic food.

Or when he just starts roaring at me like I totally understand what he has to say. Or when he fusses and fusses at nap time (because WHY on EARTH would anyone want to sleep when they can pull themselves UP?), and then just gives up and collapses over his own lap and uses his giraffe as a pillow.

Or when I play peek-a-boo with him from below his crib bumpers, and I see chubby little fingers peel back the bumper followed by a chubby little face peering over it, followed by his distinct little chortle/squeak of laughter.

I love him I love him I love him!!!!!

Yesterday we blew up his little kiddie pool. He felt like a very radical dude.

That's about all for now!!!!

Waiting for Euphoria

2011-07-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

When Matt and I were first married, we wanted to punch people in the face who were like, "Sooooooo....how's married life? Are you loving the honeymoon phase??"

Okay, maybe "punch people in the face" is a bit strong, but I think you quickly can conclude that our first year of marriage was not the state of amazing bliss that everyone said it would be. It was GOOD but it was a lot of work. Sometimes more work than we bargained for at the time. It wasn't him, it wasn't me, it was both of us, and God was doing a lot of work in us and using our marriage to do it. He still is. Safe to say, though, it's gotten better every year. :) But what frustrated us was that after we revealed to people that yeah, we had arguments and rough times and stuff like that, they were like, "Oh yeah, our first year was probably one of our toughest too."

Well, why didn't you SAY SO in the first place? Can we please be real??

I've been to a lot of deliveries in the past however many years that I've dealt with the sub-ten-pound set (unless you're that woman in Texas who had the honker kid, oh my word). I know a lot of people cry and shout for joy when their baby is born.

I know I was really happy he was out, but I didn't cry, nor do I remember shouting for joy.

I was just like, Oh. Sweet.

I was very happy he was healthy and crying and normal. But I had always imagined I'd be sobbing with joy, ecstatic, etc etc. In some ways though, I felt like I was at work. Because in a way, I was. I just happened to be the one in the gown rather than in the scrubs, and my coworkers were weighing and wiping off and banding my baby.

My baby?

So this is an honest post about how I felt after having Levi. Because not everyone experiences the euphoria they think they're supposed to feel. Some plunge into a very dark depression. I didn't. Not at all. But there's, I think, a very common in-between mix of feelings that I guess I didn't really expect. One dear friend, right off the bat, seemed to read my mind and told me that how I felt was normal. And I think that just hearing that, the day after Levi was born, was all I needed to know. My spirit sighed with relief.

First, I have to admit that Matt and I really, really thought we were having a girl. Everyone seemed to think we were having a girl. So in my mind, I was totally geared up for having a girl. Save for the fact that every time I prayed for the baby, I automatically said he and him. So when Levi came out a Levi, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. And it took probably a couple days to wrap my mind around the fact that I had a little boy and not a little girl.

I knew I loved him. I knew it. But I didn't feel ooey-gooey for him. I knew I wanted to take care of him and protect him and meet his needs, and I really enjoyed doing those things. But sometimes, yeah, I felt like I was going through the motions, or maybe it was just that I felt like I was at work.

Taking home a newborn is like taking home a grenade. Or a fat, bald, short little boss who is well-versed in negative feedback techniques and is more than happy to let you know that you just ripped a hole in the universe. I felt like we had a very ill-tempered guest with terrible manners and sleeping habits in the house - except he would never leave or give us a break.

I felt like I had sat on an atomic bomb and my legs and feet were so swollen they would have made a troll shudder.

And doesn't it just beat all that you barely sleep through your third trimester...either you have insomnia, an teaspoon-sized bladder, or raging heartburn - or all three! - and then you go through the most exhausting workout of your life to have this baby, and congratulations!!! You get to now enter the most exhausting time of your life. No break, no nap, just hit the ground running...well, after your epidural wears off anyway. Please don't hit the ground before that. It gives your nurse way more paperwork than she already has.

The first week home, I was horrified. Matt had taken the week off and helped. me. SO. MUCH. that the very hormone-filled thought of him going back to work in several days dissolved me to tears. I had no concept how I was going to do this alone. I could barely figure out how to make time to go to the bathroom, let alone pick up all the stuff I normally did around the house AND take care of this...this...negative-feedback grenade.

There were moments that were fun, but there were times that were very frustrating and discouraging. How on earth could you not want to sleep, little one?? Do you have any idea how much I covet sleep? It's hard to bond in a way with someone who doesn't look you in the eye, can't smile, and works you to the bone. I felt guilty about everything too. Was I holding him enough? Talking to him enough? Often I'd find myself staring off into space during his feedings, and then thinking OH MY WORD!!!!! I'm going to have a linguistically challenged kid because I'm not TALKING to him!!!! How is he going to MAKE it with ME as a mother?!

But eventually, you do make it. Ish. I'm still figuring out how to balance playing with Levi, with looking well to the ways of my household, with putting my relationship with God first and then my marriage, with keeping up with the laundry, with maintaining my friendships, with making it to Meijer at *just* the right time of his day. As soon as I get it all sort of figured out, he changes the routine up again and I'm back to square one. Sometimes I feel like such an idiot. The kind of mom and wife I want to be are so far removed from reality, I guess.

And falling in love with him was a gradual thing. I guess for me it was like getting to know anyone else. I knew in my heart he was my baby, my family, and I loved him. But I also knew he was his own person, one that God created uniquely, and I had to get to, well, become acquainted with him. He had gone from being this faceless stranger to an actual person with preferences and needs, and figuring him out was a roller coaster!

It took time to love being a mom and the identity shift that came along with it. I could no longer be the friend I wanted to be. My time was most certainly not my own. Matt and I couldn't just do whatever we wanted, we couldn't be spontaneous with our time, and we rarely had uninterrupted minutes alone to talk about...anything. I grieved that a little bit.

And poor Molly has been in an 8-month-long pout. But she's dealing okay. ;)

Anyway, anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I am ca-RAZY about my little boy. I love him to absolute pieces and like I've said before, now I want a house FULL of little boys. I said to Matt the other day, "I wish I had known how fun Levi would be and how much we would love him, because it would've made going through labor that much easier." But those feelings took time to grow, and if you're going through that process right now, it's okay. There is a land between the total euphoria that many parents feel...and the lonely, desolate road of postpartum depression that some people have to walk. I suspect that many of us end up in that betweeny place. Don't beat yourself up over it if you miss the time you had with your husband alone, the life that you were able to live even just weeks ago, and sleep! Matt reminded me over and over again (and still does!) that this is just a phase. Eventually they do smile at you and the world feels right again. Eventually they do sleep through the night. Eventually you do break down and get a sitter and go to your favorite restaurant.

Eventually you do realize that you love them with that indescribable love, and it was worth the wait.

Heavy

2011-07-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

My house smells like cookies. The sun is out. My baby is sleeping. My couch is full of clean and folded laundry (a rare sight, believe me...the dryer and clotheslines all serve as rudimentary dresser drawers at our house).

But my heart is so, so heavy. So full of burdens for people I dearly love who are in circumstances in which they never dreamed they'd find themselves. Marriages that are crumbling. Among other things, the men they love are in the throes of addiction and they are exchanging truth for a lie, reality for an idol. An idol that has eyes but does not see, ears but does not hear, a mouth that does not speak...and they are becoming like that idol. Numb. They worship something that is created, contrived, and false.

It is an idol that our society celebrates, accepts, and defends. Evidently it's "free speech." Consenting adults. Ha. We'd love to think that it's tied up in a neat package like that, but it ain't.

Think again. That which is free comes with a price, and the price of it is staggering. It is chipping away at our families, our relationships, our ability to see people as people, souls as souls.

I've been wanting to write about this for a long, long time. Fear of man has prevented me from doing it. It's part of the reason this blog sits dormant for weeks at a time. What I really want to pour out of my heart is dangerous. I'm afraid people will call me judgmental. A prude. A sensationalist. Not with-it. Over-the-edge.

Too bad. I've sat on my couch enough times now crying and praying with yet another friend whose dreams are threatening to be crushed by this entity. If it quacks like a duck, let's call it a duck.

Pornography is evil. Our culture is saturated and obsessed with sex. What God intended to be beautiful and in the context of a covenant relationship has been made a farce.

And I'm gonna write about it.

Proverbs 7 Prayer

2011-07-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

My son, I pray you will keep God's word and commandments treasured within you

-keep His teachings as the apple of your eye-

-bind them on your fingers-

-write them on the tablet of your heart-

I pray you will call wisdom your sister...and insight an intimate friend.

...to keep you from what is forbidden -

-from the adultress

-from the pornography industry

-from our sex-saturated culture

Father I pray that Levi will not be simple, a young man lacking sense. There are so many, many things to numb his mind. Even when he's little. Keep me mindful of what goes into it. Show me how to teach him discretion. How to guard his heart.

I pray he will delight in Your Word...that he will be like a tree planted by streams of water...that he will set his mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

The culture will meet him. Dressed as a prostitute, wily, loud, brash. Help me be on my guard. To teach him to be on his guard.

It will try to seize him, entice him. Oh, it will be so easy. So easy.

A glance at a lingerie ad.
A commercial on TV.
An errant click of the mouse.

I pray he will not be persuaded or compelled. I pray he will be equipped to discern truth from a lie, lest he be as a bird rushing into a snare....not knowing that it will cost him his life...

........his career......
........his relationships........
.........his marriage.........

My son, I pray you will desire wisdom. Truth. That your passion will be for the God who created you, who is crazy about you, who sent His Son that you may have life and have it abundantly.

Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Simple isn't easy

2011-06-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

I've been rolling a word around in my head since yesterday afternoon.

Simple.

I don't think I'm the only one who has it on my mind. There are talk shows, magazines, countless articles...all dedicated to this notion of simplicity.

It started after a conversation with my neighbor about desiring to simplify things in our lives.

It's a buzzword. A trend. A fad?? But it reflects a desire, I think, but is anyone really certain what that desire is for??

Does it mean...being more organized? Because my Real Simple magazine has all kinds of ideas for how to organize my stuff. And I really like their ideas. They're cute, kitchsy, "use this for that!" little ideas...but when I organize my stuff, I still step back and have a lot of.....stuff. And I don't feel very simplified at all.

Does it mean....being "green?" Because yeah, it does do us a world of good to "greenify," but in doing so, you actually can create more work for yourself (organic gardening, making your own cleaning products, whatever). That doesn't feel all that simple.

Does it mean....being less involved? Less busy? Because that requires me to step down, say no, back out, whatever it takes to scrape stuff off my plate. And yeah, sometimes that goes over like a fart in church, depending on who you have to tell 'no.'

So what is this, this simple life of which we speak?? I'm really posing the question, not in a provocative, buy-my-book-and-I'll-tell-you-the-answer kind of way, but I really want to know: what do we mean when we say we want to live more simply?

Seems to me that anything simple requires at least some degree of sacrifice, and are we people who are willing to make those sacrifices? To let go of what owns us, whether it's our *stuff* or our habits or our need to be busy and feel fulfilled? The more I think about it, the more (to me, at least) I realize that a great deal of purging needs to occur - in my home, in my heart, maybe even in some of my relationships. But there's stuff I want to hang on to. Things, memories, bad habits, patterns...well then, simplifying doesn't sound so chic when you put it that way. Never mind. And have you noticed, in order to be so fashionably simple, you have to buy a lot of expensive stuff to look the part???

And simple should never be equated with easy, yet I wonder how often it is. Ask any Amish person. They work like we don't even know how to spell work, yet their lives are so....unfettered, at least not by the things that burden us. There's so much STUFF that is supposed to simplify our lives but we're slaves to them. Cell phones and laptops and texting and all these weird little things that are supposed to make things quick and easy and carefree....but I don't feel free when I have them. I feel stuffed. Like at Thanksgiving and you've gone over the edge. Just stuffed, the kind of stuffed that really makes me want to reverse the process and get. it. out. so I don't feel so weighed DOWN.

Simple. Simple?

I think our world is starting to realize we've gone overboard on a whole lot of stuff and it's not doing us a whole lot of good. The simple solution is to close Pandora's Box but you'll find it's not so easy.

Ask the rich man who asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus' answer was simple: get rid of everything you have, give it to those who need it, and follow me. Watch the slump of the man's shoulders as he walks away. The price was too great to pay. He treasured his stuff more than he treasured his soul.

I treasure my ______ more than I treasure my soul. More than I treasure my Savior. It's not. Easy.

So if you're in a pondering mood, let your mind marinate in this. What is required of me, of you, of anyone, to simplify? To strip out the buzzy-buzzword-ness of it, and actually ask, what needs to go? What's mastering me? What habits, thought patterns, whatever need to be severed at the root and pulled OUT in order to bring true freedom, simplicity, and perhaps even ease??

It's more complicated than it sounds, isn't it?? ;)

I love to hate you

2011-06-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

I love Facebook.

I hate Facebook!!

I love to hate Facebook.

Tell me that Facebook is not a love-hate relationship for you too. Seriously. It is the coolest and stupidest thing our culture has right now. It's like you can't help looking at all these mundane status updates, and at the same time I'd rather have a bear gnaw my face off because it's so...so... banal.

But rather than get all huffy about it, I decided that this blog will be a list of pros and cons. It would fun to analyze every aspect of FB (because I really think it's such a fascinating and discouraging summation of our culture all at once) that I love and hate, but that would be time-consuming and ranty. So I'll just make a fun little list. Sometimes what's NOT said speaks volumes. Feel free to add what you would like to it.

Why I love Facebook
by Jenny Gouveia

I think Facebook is pretty neat for the following reasons...

1. Getting back in touch with people with whom you'd never otherwise be in touch.
2. Seeing pictures of other people's kids (though this can slide over to the 'con' list too if ya know what I mean)
3. Finding out someone's pregnant, when you wouldn't otherwise find out (see #1)
4. A quick way to find a babysitter, recommendation, tips and advice, etc.
5. Not having to memorize or otherwise cache everyone's email address
6. Networking
7. Families who live far from each other can kinda feel like they're a part of everyday life.

Well then. That was quite excellent.

And now for....

Why I Hate Facebook
by Jenny Gouveia

Facebook makes me want to chew broken glass for the following reasons...

1. Bragbooking.
2. Vaguebooking.
3. Lacking discretion (WTMI about....everything....)
4. Still lacking discretion (husbands, brothers, pastors, etc are friends with you too...think hard before you post your teeny bikini shots)
5. Bragbooking
6. Updates on the very, very mundane
7. The drama
8. Our new cultural definition of "friends"
9. Bragbooking
10. Toeing confidentiality lines
11. Posting song lyrics that make zero sense to anyone but you

Let me tell you, this isn't *nearly* as fun as saying exactly what I think about each thing. This is an exercise in restraint.

I think FB dismays me more than anything. It's a sad testimony to what our world is becoming. The saddest status update a couple of weeks ago (I won't even share what it was, it's just too sick and sad) confirmed it: we're zoning out on how to appropriately relate to people. You have 400, 600, 1200 "friends" but when one person drops off for good, it doesn't even flash a blip on your radar. We want the world to know we finished three loads of laundry before 8am and already have a roast in the oven for dinner, but are blunted at our ability to just have a good and honest and open and real conversation with each other. We walk around fashionably aloof with iPod buds in our ears, but are screaming for attention on social media. Please see me! Hear me! I'm cool and witty and important! Do you ever have days where you think in terms of potential status updates? I do. Ugh.

Now's the part where I'm supposed to declare a Facebook fast or I'm closing my account. But I'm not. Facebook (Twitter, blogs, all of it) is a part of world that we need to learn to live with. It's something that can become just as tempting of an addiction as anything else that's addictive, and I continually have to practice taming the desires of the flesh and bring them under Christ's authority. And there are some really fun people whose status updates never fail to make my day. Whose kids' pictures I gobble up. That I want to keep track of because FB is a good finger on the pulse of their life at the moment and I want to know they're not spinning out of control. I want to know when my friend in California has her baby, want to see wedding pictures, scroll thru vacation pictures and laugh about how much someone's kids look JUST like they did in high school. I like the connection, don't get me wrong. But anything can be sooooo good one second and soooooo volatile the next. A "quick" check can become an abysmal waste of half a day.

There are households to manage, relationships to tend, and hedges of protection that have to be guarded. Facebook can make a fool of anyone.

So my love/hate relationship will continue, and I'm sure this isn't the last time I'll talk about it. And I feel stupid now because I'll link this blog post on FB!! but again, that's a whole lot easier than someone trying to remember what the web address is. *sigh*

I want to be a part of the culture...but I don't want it to be a part of me. Does that make sense? I want to influence but not be wholly influenced. In the world but not of it. Such a fine line to walk.

Is FB a struggle for you? Am I the only one who wants to throw my computer at the same time I want to look at it???

Crickets

2011-06-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

Why the silence???

I know, I haven't blogged in over a month and that's just disastrous. I love to blog. And it just hasn't happened.

Because for one thing, the weather warms up and things get busy. A lame excuse, but it's not really an excuse...it's just the truth.

But even bigger than that, blogging is a little bit of a tightrope for me. You see, there are a lot of blogs out there: "mommy" blogs, sarcastic and snarky blogs, boring and uneventful blogs, opinionated blogs...and, I'm just like, I dunno...I don't want to have a blog that's overly mommy. (BTW - there are some great mommy blogs out there, I'm not knocking them!) I could have a heyday being sarcastic and snarky, but I really try to avoid that (sometimes I let it slip out for laughs, but I do try to avoid it and err on the uplifting side instead). I try to tone down on being overly opinionated or soap-boxy. Sometimes I'd love to share something I'm fired up about spiritually but I don't want to be...what's the right word...ummm...like this blog is a flannel board and my little flannel Jesus is stuck there just nice and so and I'm all perfect. Does that make any sense?? Sometimes I don't want to write something that might be misinterpreted or offend someone, even though that is never my intention. Never, ever do I wish to use this blog as a passive-aggressive outlet to try to drive out a message to someone I have in mind, hoping that they'll see it and get the point.

I don't want to come across as attention-seeking. Lord knows I'm not a fan of that.

So sometimes I just choose to keep my keyboard mouth shut. Some of it is insecurity (does anyone really care what I have to say anyway?). Some of it IS good old fear of man (I don't want to offend anyone...). Much of it is that I DO have a busy baby in the house. :) And sometimes there's something I'm struggling with and either it's not something I want to share with many people at the moment, or sadly enough, if I do share it, then I actually have to uphold my end of it and be accountable to, um, everyone.

****************************************************************

Anyway...I do have things tumbling around in my head that I'd really like to write about...because really, this blog is my journal. It's what's going on in my life, my heart. And at the end of the day, no one has to read it. I choose to make it a public forum rather than password protect it, because who knows who might need to read what God has put on my heart to say, even one time. He works in mysterious ways, even in the blogosphere.

Some of the things on my mind lately:

Mommy guilt...
Pornography....
Modesty........
Being counter-cultural....
Marriage.....
Facebook.........
Being real......
Being frugal!!!........
My identity.......

.....and at some point (hopefully soon!) I'll process all of the above (and many more!) enough to put pen to paper. So don't give up!!! I shall write more soon. So stay tuned.

BTW - this is totally unrelated to anything having to do with...anything, really, but it made me laugh:

Picture me, sitting on the kitchen floor eating a bowl of popcorn, with this audience:

To my left

And to my right

Seriously, the look on Levi's face!!!! hahahahahaha!!!!

SIX MONTHS!!!!

2011-04-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

If I turn myself inside out to have this baby, so be it.

That's what I was thinking around 0445 on the morning of October 29th, 2010. Because that's when I was finally able to push.

I haven't told my "labor story" here because, well.......hearing every detail of a labor and delivery feels like........being at work.

But it IS my - our - labor story. I was induced. Because I was a gestational diabetic. Turns out it was probably a very good thing that I was induced because Levi was at least a pound bigger than we anticipated. I didn't really WANT to be induced, but my take on it is it's not about me.

So I picked my room (a perk to working on the unit) and showed up at 0700 on Thursday, October 28th fully ready to have a baby, by, oh........late that evening. That was my highest hope. Fully hoping to NOT have a c-section, oh.....the next morning. I so wanted to go into labor before then, but evidently Levi didn't.

Don't I work with the greatest people??

You always start OUT looking cute...!!!!

Must still have been feeling good...

Some decent contractions...(the black "hills" on the bottom of the screen)

I started with a pill to get things "going." We walked. We played Scrabble. We watched the screen. I peed like every half hour and Matt learned quickly how to unhook the monitor, wrap the straps around my neck, and then hook it back up when I was done. We walked some more. I started to feel "something."

And then I started to feel more. We stopped playing Scrabble.

Somewhere in there Pitocin was added to the mix. I felt more.

Then one of my fave docs came and broke my water. I felt more.

It was a cold, blustery October day outside. A huge tree was across the street, having just lost its leaves, and i's bare, black branches touched a sad gray sky. To me it looked like upside-down lungs...and so I laid on my side and fixed my eyes on that tree during the worsening contractions, imagining that those "lungs" were my own, opening and reaching for oxygen, anything to breathe life to my little one and push him or her closer to life outside.

It hurt. Oh yes, it hurt. I knew it would, obviously. I was afraid I'd be the freaked-out crazy lady, standing on my bed screaming horrid words at my poor husband and coworkers (think for a minute: how many of YOU have the opportunity to have a child with your coworkers present???). But oddly, that wasn't the case. I stayed calm and kept my sense of humor. I breathed just like they told me to during our childbirth class. Matt did everything he was told during our class. He was amazing. Absolutely amazing.

When we pulled into the parking lot that morning, as Matt put the car in park I told him the one thing I needed from him, if nothing else: stay calm. No matter WHAT happens, please, stay calm...because I can't calm myself AND him if something goes down.

It's a good thing we had that brief discussion. Because we had our scary moments. The baby's heart rate took a dive a few times...and more than just a brief dive. The details are boring, but I'll suffice to say that A) my nurse (it was night shift by now) - I found out - responds exactly the same way that I do to an oh-crap-oh-crap-oh-crap moment: with deathly calm. No change in her voice, no inflection, nothing. Simple, quiet, gentle commands that may as well be screamed, but can't be. Not in front of the patient. No one else would have ever picked up on her voice that way...but sure enough, suddenly the charge nurse and anyone else who had a free hand was in my room, an oxygen mask was on my face, and I was *determined* to keep it together. I knew I was in good hands. And I also thought to myself (based on the heart rate that I could see on the monitor) - well, if this baby were my patient, I wouldn't be doing chest compressions yet, so I can't freak out too much.

And I also thought, we are SO having a girl. No wimpy white boy would tolerate these drops in heart rate.

We tried to nap and take it easy for several hours. My hope for an evening baby turned to a hope for a just-after-midnight baby...which turned into a 3am baby? Oh please don't let me have a c-section at shift change!!!!!

And then at 0445, I was ready to push.

And push I did. OH my goodness. Yes, I had an epidural. Yes, I was glad!!!!!

I pushed for nearly three hours. I was absolutely, utterly exhausted. So exhausted I fell asleep between contractions and pushes (never did a minute feel so fast nor so sweet). But I was NOT going to have a c-section. Not because I'm opposed to c-sections, I just knew that I would NEVER get a nap that day if I had a doggone section, and I was SO TIRED.

Matt. Was. Amazing. That man coached me through this labor like he had done it hundreds of times. He buried his fist in my back when I needed counter-pressure. He counted and encouraged and cheered me through each push. He did everything - everything! - better than right.

And then it happened!!!!! One final push at 0733, twenty-four hours after this all started, and sweet mercy and hallelujah, my OB turned the baby over so Matt and I could be the first to see and call out,

It's a.........BOY?!?!?

(We were SO SURE he was girl!!)

And with that, a stunned, angry, blinking little Levi began to cry. The most beautiful song any new parent has ever heard - lungs filling with life and promise and dreams.

And now my sweet baby is six months!!!!! I've been quietly celebrating his six-month "birthday" all day today, rejoicing in the Lord for this dear son that He's given us to parent. Oh, how we love this little boy!!

He just discovered the baby in the exersaucer mirror!!

Watching the royal wedding with me this morning!!!! hahahahaha!!!

Sitting on his own for more than three seconds!

Cuttin' back

2011-04-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'm really hoping this post doesn't make me sound too Little House on the Prairie...though yesterday I was pumping at work and watching a rerun of Little House, and I thought, That's not a bad way to live...

Anyway, we've needed to cut back. A lot. When you drop one person's income by a third...and then another third within a few months, it catches your attention. We've tried not to rely very heavily on my income anyway, but still...you know what I mean.

In anticipation of having children one day, we long ago started looking at ways we could save money here and there, and it's become a fun challenge rather than an absolute necessity. But now it's becoming more necessary, especially if we want to keep savings accounts available for things like medical bills not covered by insurance (I lost my amazing insurance when I cut down to one day a week and had to go on Matt's, which is fine but not as great as what I had), property taxes, etc.

It's interesting...kind of like when you move (multiple times) and balk at how much *stuff* you have, when push comes to shove and you need to cut stuff out of the budget, it's alarming how much stuff you've been willing to pay for that really isn't all that life-changing.

So I thought I'd bounce off of you the stuff that we've been doing to cut back or change things, and I'd love to hear what you do as well!!!! Always open to suggestions! Maybe this'll give you some ideas too (not that any of mine are that imaginative)...

1) Line drying Except for Matt's work clothes and Levi's cloth diapers, I line dry almost everything. Yes, our towels are crunchy (you can always fluff them in the dryer, I just don't take the time), but at the end of the day, do I push my chair away from the dinner table and say, "My day was wrecked because my bath towel was crunchy?" No. It is a little time-consuming in the winter when things are drying in the cool basement as opposed to the sunny, warm breeze, but it's not that big of a deal. And ya, of course I use the dryer when I simply don't have time to line dry. No use in being a Nazi about it. But every little bit counts. Heck, even when we lived in apartments stuff would be draped over chairs, the shower rod, etc.

2) Reusing plastic bags When I was in college and dating a very Dutch guy from a very Dutch family, I rolled my eyes and snickered at the sight of plastic sandwich bags drying by the sink at his parents' house. Well heavens to Betsy, here I am washing out ziplock bags and hanging them on the line to dry, too. But you know what? It's one less thing to buy, I'm never out of baggies, and it's one less thingy going out to the dump. So I swallow my pride and do it. We use cloth napkins too. I mean, really, you get them for your wedding and they fill your drawer, so you may as well use 'em!!!

3) Cloth diapers Disposables and wipes cost roughly $1500/year. We've probably spent ~$700 on cloth diapers, cloth wipes, and related items, which is a lot upfront, but then you're set for every kid here on out. Yes, I use disposables when we're out and about and for sitters, again no use in being a Nazi. We've seen no change in our utility costs from using the dryer more, probably since it's offset by the line-drying of other things. But no diaper rash equals not having to stock up on butt cream, either.

4) Try some vegetarian dishes We've run the gamut from eating fast food to vegan (as in, ZERO animal products) and everything in between. Now we've settled in a delightfully "flexitarian" diet that includes local, hormone- and antibiotic-free, grass-fed meats; butter and milk from pastured, grass-fed cows, etc. That being said, we only enjoy those things in small doses on the menu to stretch them out...like once a week. Most dishes are rice, bean, and vegetable based and are FABULOUS!!! And our grocery bills are waaaaay cheaper!!! I'm still doing triple-flips over The Ultimate Guide to the Daniel Fast which has amazing, easy, and cheap recipes that you can totally tweak and add meat, cheese, whatever to. But on any given day I can be like, "Dude, I have bare bones in the house," flip open that book, and find a fabulous recipe with a handful of ingredients that I already have on hand. Eating healthy is *not* expensive, and this is from someone who buys organic produce, milk, and meat (since Matt has to eat gluten-free, we can't buy packaged stuff, pop, etc...THAT'S what made our bills start to go down). Just pick great foods, eat smaller portions, and enjoy it! I mean seriously, you don't really see me or Matt blowing away, it's not like we're not eating here.

5) No-drive days Yeah, $4/gallon gets MY attention. Fortunately I'm not in soccer-mom stage and live within walking distance of a whole lot of things in town. Still, I'm not exactly walking with an infant to run errands in the winter, so it's not like that's my easy solution for everything either. But now as I plan out my weeks, I pick at least one day - usually two - that are designated "no drive" days. Clearly that'll change when I have older kids who have to be driven hither and yon. But it made me realize how many times I would just mindlessly fire up my car and go...when it could've waited. Prevents impulse errands/shopping/buying too. This summer we'll do even more walking and biking, which of course is a nice benefit of living in town. Um, and slow down on the road. Matt drives 65 (yes, 65) on his way to work (commuting to GR is a gas-eater) and seriously, it saves majorly on gas.

6) Put cable on the chopping block There. I said it. Ouch. We haven't axed our cable yet, but we're about to. I was watching the early morning news a few weeks ago with Levi playing next to me, when he suddenly stopped moving and stared, glazed and transfixed, at the TV. I was like, Aw-heck-no and shut if off. Now, I'm not trying to be a Nazi again. Parking him in front of Veggie Tales (or whatever) for an afternoon when I'm busy or sick WILL happen someday and I'm okay with that. I love TV, don't get me wrong. I think a day of watching HGTV with a vat of popcorn could be a national holiday. But that's exactly the problem...I could easily spend a few hours/afternoon/the day on the banality of TV...and for what? Ew. Not how I really want to spend money after all. With shows online now, and Netflix, we really don't need it anyway if there's something we'd really like to see.

7) Make your own household cleaners Seriously, I think vinegar could probably write a State of the Union address. It's capable of everything else. I use it to clean everything. Vinegar and hydrogen peroxide together are cleaning superheros. One spray of each kills pretty much anything, including E. coli. I've made our laundry soap now for the past couple of years and it works fabulously...including on spit-up soaked garments. :) A box of washing soda and Borax will pretty much take care of your whole house - toilet, bath tub and all...though I do splurge and buy Seventh Generation toilet cleaner and Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day for scrubbing the tub.

Of course, there are obvious things, like shopping at thrift stores and garage sales, turning off lights you're not using, etc etc. I'm not a coupon clipper because most coupon-able stuff is stuff that Matt can't have or we just don't buy anyway.

So what do you do?? I'm open to more ideas!!

Nearly six months?!

2011-04-09T18:06:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd be sentimental about such small things, but I am. I had to store away the swing and the bouncy seat tonight...he's so over something as boring as a little baby swing and he's too big and rowdy for the bouncy (when it starts creaking and clunking and the baby is trying to flip it over...time to put it away). But it made me sad!!!! He's already growing up too fast!!! *sniff*

I love this kid. He's all boy. I'm crazy about baby boys now. I want a whole passel of 'em. Well, maybe one or two more. He's constant energy and motion. He wants to stand and jump all. the. time. Put him in the exer-saucer and he nearly rattles it apart with his jumping. Pick him up and his feet are pumping in a perma-jump. Walk him in his stroller and his legs are STILL moving in and out in a jumping motion. In the car you can hear the rhythmic swoosh of his feet back and forth on the car seat. He's not a squealer, screecher, or anything like that. Just a quietly cackling (his laugh is more of a a chortle or cackle) little jumper.

Six months in a few weeks!!! My oh my oh my...

In his fabulously tricked-out jogger...

Playing with a sippy cup...

Flirting from the saucer

His beloved aunt Mary and big "brother" Josiah

Trying out the Johnny Jumper

In reverse

2011-03-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of one for interpreting dreams, writing them down, and pondering what they might mean. Certainly the Lord can speak to us through dreams, but, well, I tend to leave that alone.

When I was in high school and college - and sometimes even now - I had a recurring dream where I was running - usually in a cross country race - but I could not get ANYWHERE. My legs were going, but it was like being on a treadmill and I couldn't gain any ground. Sometimes I was being chased, but usually I was just in a race and becoming more and more frustrated that I couldn't GO. I usually ended up running backwards. Weird.

Occasionally I have a dream where I'm desperately trying to dial a number, and I keep getting the last digit wrong, and have to start all over again. It's intensely frustrating, and I actually lived it out yesterday at work when I was trying to call someone and kept hitting the wrong last digit. Kinda freaked me out.

But recently I have a new dream that keeps showing up: I'm driving by myself in a car. Levi's in his car seat, and he's younger - like 1 month old. But my car's in reverse. And in my dream that seems totally okay - like I'm doing nothing to change the fact that it's in reverse - but I'm truly trying to drive down a highway...in reverse. And no one else is going in reverse, and in fact, I'm going uphill and these huge semis are pouring over the hill right at me, and I'm fully turned around trying to tend to Levi, while trying to steer backwards. Mind you, I'm not really panicked or frantic, I'm just trying to steer and protect my son...all while going in reverse.

It just occurred to me that in my running dream, I always ended up running backwards. Huh.

Anyway, I was up quite a bit with little Levi last night. He usually sleeps well at night, often waking once and needing a quick paci-plug before going right back to sleep (I know, we'll have to break that habit at some point, but one thing at a time...). No idea why, but he woke up about three times before I finally gave in and fed him, and even then he stayed up gabbing away to himself in his crib for at least a half hour before he fell back to sleep. It was probably about 3 before he really called it a night. Aye. Truly, he hasn't partied like that since like his first week home. Not sure why he resurrected the idea.

I try to enjoy those moments with him, rocking and feeding him in the dark. Because I know I'll put him back down, kiss him goodnight (again), head up to my own bed, and when I open my eyes again he'll be grown.

So I was rocking him and thinking about my recent recurring dream. And whether or not it really "means" something, it seemed as clear as day that parenting Levi the way we intend to parent him will be much - MUCH - like driving down the highway in reverse.

I've heard people say they would never want to raise their kids in this generation. To be sure, it'll be a challenge. Raising a godly young man in a me-focused culture will be a challenge. We don't seek to hide him from the big, bad world...but we do want to teach him discernment, wisdom, and discretion before he's exposed to some of it.

Levi was one of 7 boys born at our church this past year. My friend's mother remarked (my friend had one of those boys), "God must be raising an army of godly young men." Wow. No matter how you see that remark, the responsibility to raise a young man full of integrity who will demonstrate servant leadership is humbling and staggering. I'm honored to be up to the challenge, but it makes me tremble with awe...and perhaps a bit of trepidation.

How do we teach Levi to view women in a way that a man should view them...rather than just in the way a male would view them? There's an incredible difference.

How do we raise him to think about things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy, in a society that scoffs at truth, elevates lewdness and is lost on what really is lovely, and sets us adrift in low expectations?

What about raising a son who quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger? When everyone around him will tell him to stand up for his rights, be heard, speak his mind? What's it like to instill that a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion in a culture like ours, where we clamor to be heard, heard, heard but rarely listen and consider our words?

I want Levi's hands to be held out in service, but he will be told that it's his turn to be served, to receive what he deserves, to take what he wants...because he needs to look out for himself.

No, no son. The Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want. He will be your Provider, Defender, and Keeper.

Is it possible to teach self-control in a decadent world that celebrates self-indulgence?

Yes, that highway is long and wide. And we are charged to show him the path that is narrow. Our little car is in reverse, and truckloads of lies that are wildly opposed to Christlike values are heading our way full speed ahead. Buckle in, kiddo, it'll be quite a ride.

But it's my job to show you the narrow road. The tougher road. Many will scoff at you for taking that road. And the cost of that road is high.

God gave Levi to us to parent. My daily prayer is that He will make me a student of my son's heart. Our hand is at the plow of his heart for only so long. I know that we will be criticized for being too strict, too vigilant, to sheltering, too-too-too...but that's the cost we're willing to pay to parent this child in the way we feel led. We'll make grand mistakes for sure.

My hope is not for Levi to be successful...though I would love to see him succeed.

It is not for him to be happy...though I want to throw myself in front of any train that could crush him.

It is that he takes after his Father...the One who knew his heart even before mine was beating.

And if it seems like we are pedaling backwards in a culture that is quickly moving in the opposite direction, then that's what we'll do.

Kablam!!!

2011-03-22T17:42:00.000-07:00

I know this falls in the WTMI category, but I have to share.

Five days. Five days without anything escaping from the rear hatch, if you know what I mean.

He's gone maybe two days, but once day three and day four crept up, I wondered what was up (down? anywhere?). There was only breastmilk in there...and peas...and squash...hmmmm...

I wasn't worried. He was happy. Good appetite, soft tummy, all the things that should have indicated all things were go - except that there was just no go.

So I dug in the auxiliary stash and found the prunes. He loved 'em. Like pureed sticks of dynamite, down the hatch they went.

I waited...

....and waited......

.....and waited.........................

NOTHING.

All day!! I kept getting emails from Matt asking, "Ka-blam yet???" No, no ka-blam yet.

See, when I hear a baby ka-blam, my stomach just feels better by proxy. I knew Levi didn't need to feel better. I did.

Hauled out the prunes again, much to his delight. Shoveled them in like they were going outta style.

Dinnertime, sitting in his little seat-thingy. He grunted, turned red. Matt and I looked at each other. But no ka-blam. C'mon kid. Grunt. *silence* Seriously.

Sigh. Oh well. We tried. It'll come when it comes. Well, we'll try a few more tricks up our sleeve. Let's play airplane!!!! Rolling Levi on the bed, this way and that, pulling up his legs, Matt's playing fighter-jet-artillary-boy-stuff with Levi's feet up in the air...Levi's having a grand old time...

....but still no ka-blam.

Time for a bath, then, let's wrap this show up. Clearly it'll happen when it happens and we shan't worry.

Pull off his little pants....

....the onesie......

......a finger check of the diaper, quick peek into the dark cavern of that scary place where only mothers dare to tread........

......................................ohhhhhhhhh nooooooooooo.................................

!!!!!!!

Those quiet, surreptitious grunts at the dinner table?

Beneath them slipped a monumental, horrifying mess of biblical proportions.

And then we made him play "airplane" in it!!!

Five days!!!

Change is Afoot

2011-03-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

So I went back to work about 2 months ago now...

...it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I told Matt that it broke my heart nearly as much as losing our Glory Baby, maybe even more.

But it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things. We had great daycare worked out, I had my new schedule all worked out, and our next phase of "new normal" was about to implemented.

Well, it's a fairly long story, but I'll just sum it up by saying that the Lord had a lot to teach us in a small amount of time. It's been a little rough. Good, always good, but rough. Matt and I have had some decisions to make, some priorities to rearrange, and yes, some arguments to hash out.

Some questions to ask:

Where does our treasure lie??

What is God's plan for our family?

Do we trust in the Lord, or do we trust in our money?

Do we trust Him to give us exactly what we need - our daily bread - no more and certainly no less?

As always, the Lord is kind enough to bring us back to the same answer: He is our sole sufficiency. He is enough. He is our Provider.

I'm not quitting my job outright...I'm dropping down to one day a week, and the way my weekend schedule works out, that means that I'll work my weekend every three weeks and the Saturday of my weekend will be my one day for the first week, Sunday will be my one day for the second week, and I'll work one weekday on the third week. And then repeat the following weekend. So essentially, Levi will be with a sitter one day every three weeks, which will be at the house of one of my besties. I love my job. But things have changed.

So, I guess I'll be a stay-at-home mom who wears scrubs occasionally. And I really like that.

I think he will too!

Ahhhh....(record scratch)

2011-03-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

Look!!! Levi's dinner matches the wall!!

Ahhhh....I sat down blissfully with a bowl of popcorn to enjoy a quiet few precious moments to finally blog. Nothing like a baby sleeping blissfully in his car seat after running errands.

Annnnnd...cut. Nap aborted. *sigh* Maybe later!

Worst. Blogger. EVER!

2011-03-06T11:04:00.000-08:00

So I'm a total bloser. (That's street talk for "blogging loser.") I truly long to sit down and write and write and write. You'd think I could just "write while the baby sleeps." Yeah, that's as laughable as "sleep when the baby sleeps" (who SAYS that anyway??!! and does it really WORK for anyone?).

Anyway, first, I went to work. Then Levi got sick. Then Matt got sick. Then I got sick. And Levi got sick. Then I got sick. Levi stayed sick. That pretty much sums up the past six weeks! The bulk of our electricity goes to running a humidifier (Levi's room is like a tropical oasis), it smells like Vicks VapoRub, the little bulb booger-sucker-thingy is begging for a break...aye!!! 'Tis the season!

So that's why you haven't heard much from me!!! Someday, someday it'll change and I'll be able to write!

In the meantime, though, this little guy is a crackup and changing like ca-RAZY. Check 'im out:

This is his favorite place to hang out - his play mat. That's why you see so many pics of him on it!

Not exactly what I had in mind when I put out the quilt and toys for tummy time.
Molly's like, "What? I'm *on* my tummy."

Aunt Renee. :)

I busted out the exersaucer a couple weeks ago. You should see this kiddo's dance moves!!

Starting to purposefully grab at his toys...

I bought him a high-chair thingy that you strap to your chair so he can join us for dinner. He's quite social that way - loves to just sit at the table with us, this little fuzzy bobbing head.

I really wish I could well describe what a hoot he is!! You know how some babies are just sweet, chubby little babies who, I don't know, are just babies?? And then there are the "little old man" variety, who look like they already understand you, watch you intently, and almost make you feel disconcerted because maybe, just maybe, they DO know what you're thinking and saying? That's Levi. He's very social, is quite a talker, makes very direct eye contact...I'm not saying, "Oh, my kid's a genius" or anything. He's just funny. Way more of a personality than I even realized a four-month-old could be!!

Right now, he and Matt are having a very intense vowel-oriented conversation. :)

Well, I better get ready for work. Got a nice surprise bonus day with my family, and I'm surprisingly okay with that. More soon!! (I hope!!)

Sleep Ninja

2011-02-06T18:25:00.000-08:00

This little boy gave me a run for my money today.

It doesn't take much time for one little boy to fill so many diapers...over and over and over again...

Laughing at Daddy! Yes, his outfit fits him. It looks like the buttons are bursting open but they're not. I got it at a thrift store and I think it's been washed and worn so many times that the material curls out.

He fussed and carried on every time I put him down for a nap today. He ate fine. He laughed and smiled and played during playtime. But he would not nap. I tried every trick I knew. I even rubbed my fingers on his gums to check for teeth (which he thought was hilarious). The Sleep Ninja had returned with a vengeance.

He won a few battles.

But he did not win the war.

Mama's bedtime routine rang in the victory. Sleep Ninja is snoring in his crib. Tomorrow is a new day.

Be prepared for pictures....

2011-02-05T04:00:00.000-08:00

It's 7:00 on a Saturday morning, and I've been up for an hour and a half...and that was the Sleeping In edition. I'm tired, and the telltale scratch in my throat warns me that the cold-cloud is hanging over my head...but the house is quiet - even the dog is sacking it in! - and I treasure these moments with my feet up on the couch to let my mind wander, read, download pictures, blog...whatever I want to do. I'm sipping my tea and enjoying myself...and isn't that what Saturday mornings are for, anyway??

I've been SO behind on posting pictures or blogging at all. So I'll catch you all up with a nauseating array of shots from the past several weeks -

- oh, just heard the telltale creak on the steps, opened the door and Molly poured out like water. I have her quiet company now -

...where was I? Oh, nauseating array of shots! Levi is growing faster than a Hollywood romance and is the delight of our hearts. He's a smiley (though SO DIFFICULT to get that smile on camera! I pull out the camera and he stops smiling at me and concentrates on the CAMERA), cooing, flirtatious, banging-his-legs-on-the-floor/mattress/changing pad little boy. He's not much of a fusser, sometimes sleeps through the night (often he just wakes up and needs his pacifier to get back to sleep...somehow his thumb got lost and we're working on reclaiming it), and often he'll stop mid-feed just to smile and "talk" to me. What a joy!!!!

Aunt Ellen, had to show you the Texas onesie he already started fitting into a month ago!!
This pic is already "old" - he looks so little in it!

Clearly someone other than Levi enjoys the Boppy...

He's starting to not scream during tummy time - the little mirror really helps!! And yes, that IS a wine glass you see on the table in the background filled with pacifiers...because let's just call it what it really is: an addiction!!!

The onesie you gave me, Kelly!

He looks greasy here because I had just slathered his face with olive oil - the best way I've found to get rid of that scaley winter baby skin!

So I look like a total bumpkin here, but Levi looked so sweet in his fleecy winter hat and mittens!

Aunt Ginger, the aviator hat is still too big, but I had to put it on him! And it's sooooo cute!!!

Looking a little pitiful when he had a cold earlier this week...

Case in point: smiling-smiling-smiling...camera comes out...fixate-fixate-fixate-on-camera....

...but I did manage to catch the smile again when we were done getting dressed!

The best naps are carseat naps!

Just getting coordinated enough to sit in a Bumbo seat!!

Intensely concentrating on toys in the bouncy seat

No, I don't let him sleep in the corner of the couch with a honker fleece...I was keeping him quiet and happy while I pumped...

Now don't be jealous of Matt's fancy home office! And no, I don't think that paint color is available anymore but you might come close if you mix some primer with toothpaste.

Well there you have it! The latest and greatest! :) I have some sweet pics from the aftermath of the blizzard, but that'll have to be another post. Matt's up and I need some breakfast!!!!

Daydreaming

2011-01-12T09:46:00.001-08:00

Well little did I expect the AUTHOR of "The Ultimate Guide to the Daniel Fast" to comment on my blog!!! Kristen, I wrote the review on Amazon.com and had fun doing it. And I daydreamed for a few minutes about what a great career I could make blogging, trying recipes, and writing reviews...if only I could figure out a way to get paid for that...

Anyway, Kristen, thanks for giving this new mama (who was recently bawling, "I feel like I'm already losing brain cells!") a little boost today!

BTW - her blog is provoking, insightful, refreshing, and full of great recipes!

Back to loving food

2011-01-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

I promise to put some pics of Levi at the end of this post.

So if you know me well, you'll know that it is NOT like me to say that when I was pregnant, I was so totally grossed out by vegetables. I couldn't get enough fruit, but vegetables were dry-heave-able. (Okay, it wasn't that bad - except for avocados, which I normally LOVE, and now we have a somewhat tenuous relationship...). I think that was the most tragic part of being in the first trimester and feeling like garbage. My cookbooks remained sad and dusty on their shelf. When I got my Vegetarian Times magazines in the mail, I literally had to quickly turn them over so I couldn't see the veggies on the front. I didn't want to cook, didn't want to experiment like I normally do with recipes...I truly went from eating a primarily vegan diet to stocking up on Smart Ones frozen meals and plowing thru family-size boxes of Goldfish crackers. That's all my stomach would take.

Well, after nearly a year of being pregnant (truly, I tell you - was pregnant last November and technically most of December, had a month off in January, and you know the rest...), and now arising out of the foggy mist of sleep deprivation, frustration, and self-doubt....I'm so BACK! My cheap Frigidaire stove is fired up and I'm a lactating lady with the metabolism of a combustion engine.

Now I know that many of you made NY resolutions to eat better and lose weight. Admit it. What better way to do that than to try some new stuff packed full of veggies and whole grains? I found this book full of great recipes - I was so taken by the shiny, colorful pictures that my credit card levitated OUT of my wallet and forced me to buy it - called "The Ultimate Guide to the Daniel Fast" by Kristen Feola. I'm not doing the so-called Daniel Fast (couldn't even really tell you about it; remember, I was drawn to the pictures), but the recipes are quite pleasing. They don't involve too many weirdo ingredients (though, perhaps as part of your resolution to eat better, it would be a good idea to try something new each week anyway, you might be surprised), are very simple, delicious, and healthy. If you're a vegan, you'll be pleased. If you're g-free, you'll be pleased. If you're dairy-free, you'll be pleased. If you like to eat, you'll be pleased.

That being said, yes these recipes are vegan/g-free/d-free/lalalalala, BUT, if you want to cook up some chicken to go along with it, throw on some cheese, whatever, they would be great that way too. I didn't use any chicken b/c I didn't have any. And BTW, if you're a Hollander, Montello's on S. Washington has an amazing selection of meat and poultry. Most of what they sell is hormone and antibiotic free, free-range, grass-fed, AND LOCAL. It's an impressive establishment and I can't recommend them highly enough. Their prices are fair too.

Anyway, here are two dinners I tried this past week and received thumbs-up approval from Matt (though, he has been known to say that he would eat poop on a stick, he's that grateful for someone else making him food, so maybe his standards are a bit low?).

Asparagus-Mushroom Saute'

1 T EV olive oil
1c thinly sliced onion
3c sliced mushrooms
1lb asparagus spears, cut into 1-in pieces
2 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 t dried oregano
salt and pepper (or your fave seasoning salt)

Heat olive oil over med. heat in a large skillet. Add everything to skillet and saute over med-hi heat for 5-7 min or until veggies are crisp-tender. You can add cooked brown rice and garbanzo beans to make it a complete meal. I think some marinated chicken would taste wonderful with it too. This might sound weird, but I had made a huge batch of hummus, and stirred some into my bowl with this stuff and it tasted FABULOUS.

Speaking of hummus, who knew you could make....

Hummus Casserole???

Now before you get all blech on me, first admit that you DO like hummus with pita chips, and then bear in mind that you can just mix the hummus and veggies together, NOT cook it, and use this recipe as a dip anyway. I did cook it, and used it a dip with tortilla chips and it was quite yummy.

2c of your fave hummus (I thought I had blogged my hummus recipe at some point, but I can't find it...if you need a good hummus recipe, lemme know)
1/2 c water
1 carrot, shredded
1/4 c chopped green onions
2c cooked brown rice
And then the recipe calls for a bunch of veggies I didn't have, so I just used what I DID have - bell peppers, broccoli, etc. About a cup of each.

Mix it all together, put it in a baking dish sprayed with cooking spray, cover, and bake at 350 for 20 min.

And now, for some eye candy...

Isn't he so fashionably cute??? Matt picked out the fleece vest.

Why, oh why, Blogger, do you rotate my pics??? Anyway, if you want to be guaranteed a smile, put Levi on his diaper changing pad. I mean, his cloth diapers ARE pretty sweet, but I had no idea he'd like them THAT much...

Little Thumb, Big Project

2011-01-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

So for the past couple of weeks Levi has undertaken what we have come to call "Project Thumb." He somehow discovered the divine nature of a deliciously suckable, opposable thumb. Unfortunately, he had not achieved the neuromuscular development necessary to insert that little thumb in its target and leave it there. So for two weeks, just about every moment he was awake, that little fist would wave in the air with the thumb sticking out, trying, trying, trying to be sucked. Matt and I (again) made fools of ourselves, exaggeratedly demonstrating the motion of sticking out your thumb and putting it in your mouth. I'm so GLAD none of you were flies on the wall by our dinner table!

But TODAAAAYYYYY....I peeked in on him during his nap this morning and what to my wondering eyes did appear????

Project Thumb is a wrap, folks!

So long, 2010...

2010-12-31T18:19:00.000-08:00

Remember when we used to sing that we'd party like it's 1999? As if something amazing and pivotal would happen at the END of 1999, so we may as well party like rock stars? Or at least like the Artist Formerly Known as Prince??? (hahahahahaha)

And man, NOW 1999 is SO....1999. Like shelved along with all of Molly Ringwald's movies. It really feels like it was that long ago.

Well that was a random thought that just flew off my fingers.

A year ago, Matt and I celebrated with dinner at the Piper. The Christmas season was hard, filled with many nights when I cried myself to sleep during a ridiculously drawn-out miscarriage. But it was good. Christmas was bittersweet - bitter for the obvious reason, sweet because my dear Savior came to experience suffering on a level I will never have to know, to truly bring comfort and joy - not just in a "it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you" way. My comfort is in Him; His joy is my strength. We looked forward to a new year, somewhat biting our lips wondering if this loss was just a precursor for more. But at least we had hope. And each other.

It felt like my friends were having babies left and right. Not really, but a small handful of my nearest and dearest were due soon. I admit that I felt bitter and angry at times. And I only had one loss...what do people do when they have multiple losses??? I can only imagine.

On the day that one of my besties had her baby, I got two pink lines. I was scared to death, yet deep down I knew it would be okay. Matt emailed me from work and asked how I was doing after having visited my friend and her newborn in the hospital. I wrote back that, as a matter of fact, I was doing quite fine - and attached a picture of the positive test. It took him a few looks to figure out what the picture was and what I meant.

Well, here I am, probably should be in bed - Matt turned in earlier than is probably legal on NYE, the dog is snoring and smacking her lips, the baby is conked, and the diaper load in the wash needs its second cycle. But I just want to savor this. I want to sit here and think about every little moment from this past year. Finding out we were expecting again. Our entire church congregation praying for us on Sunday morning. Telling Martine at work and having her nearly leap over a baby's isolette on me. Praying through c-sections that I would not ralph in my surgical mask. The love that my family, friends, church family, and coworkers poured on me while I grieved and while I rejoiced. Seeing Levi for the first time - a little speck of rice on a seven-week ultrasound with a bright flick-flick-flick for a heartbeat. Grilling the poor ultrasound tech at the 20-week appointment about every possible anomaly. Peeing every 45 minutes for months. My dear husband cheering me on during labor like he'd done it a million times before. My OB flipping the baby up for us to be the first to see what "it" was and both of us calling out in unison, "It's a....boy?!?!?" Our guts totally said he was a girl.

My little bird finally came...and really, the thought of calling him a "little bird" now - at 13 1/2 pounds and in 6-month clothes - is kind of laughable.

I'm just so grateful. I was so afraid of so many things,and God carried us through. He kept my sweet baby safe in the hidden place and brought him safely to our family.

So 2011 looks to be a little more low-key and I'm okay with that. I'll go back to work part-time and my dear neighbor will watch Levi - another evidence of God's grace to us. Again, so grateful.

Resolutions? I guess I have a few bouncing in my mind, of course. But I really want to go deeper this year, into the heart and marrow of my spirit and sever some sin issues at the root. That's going to take some humility and will require some work - but I look forward to experiencing the fruit of the freedom that will result.

Well, I better get to bed. Lord knows I'll be up again soon!!! Happy New Year!

Levi's Betrothed

2010-12-20T11:40:00.000-08:00

This is Bezoar. (Well, she does have a name - a prettier one than Bezoar - and it's Kristin.) She's my bestie.

Know what? Something really cool happened on the day that Levi was born...

...she gave birth to a little girl named Madeline. (!!!!)

Do ya THINK we have designs on the betrothal of these two???

So here was one of their first dates...

...okay, so the violins aren't striking up in the background yet, but just you wait. And oh what a joyous day that'll be!! We just know they'll be sold on the whole arranged marriage thing.

(I know Kristin would want me to point out that Maddie had a really bad case of baby acne, not a rash - and I would equally like to point out that said acne did nothing to cover up how darling she is!!)

Here's something else that's beyond cool -

This was this past Saturday night. Among the four of us, in the past couple of years we've had all manner of heartbreak in the area of childbearing (multiple miscarriages, told you may never conceive, etc)...and look at us! Four babies in 2010 - two of whom were born on the same day, and three of whom were born within weeks of each other (I'll let you guess which three...think hard...). What a gracious God we serve! Two years ago the only kiddo in this group was Kristin's older son...what will this picture look like in two more years??

Just had to point out how great all the carseats looked lined up with each other - all the same ones, might I add (the highly ranked Chicco Keyfit 30, in case you're in the market for one).

In other news, my cousin Laura took a break from studying for finals last weekend to come see Levi...SO GOOD to see her!! Come any time, Laura!

Levi dressed up for his first Christmas party (don't worry, I was on my way to the shower myself...)

This little play mat was a gift from Matt's sister and brother-in-law and their son in Colorado...Levi LOVES it! This is the first time I put him on it - you can kind of see him grinning from the side. :)

And I just had to throw in this post-bath pic from last night. Who doesn't love a chubby naked baby in a duck towel?

Well, friends, in case I don't have a chance to blog again this week, Merry Christmas!! And Stamy fam, we're SO EXCITED to see you!!

My sweetie

2010-12-15T07:56:00.001-08:00

Me and Mr. McSquish cleaning the house together. Clearly he is quite pleased with this arrangement!

Just some random pics

2010-12-13T08:52:00.000-08:00

I have a few extra minutes believe it or not, so I thought I'd throw some random pictures of Levi on here. My friend Mary uses her blog as sort of her family scrapbook, and I like that idea. I don't scrapbook, though I admire those who do and have the creativity and patience for it. I don't even have a baby book where you write down milestones and stuff like that. Didn't even think of it, and come to think of it, it's probably not a bad idea..but at least I can write the same stuff down in a blog. So forgive me if it's boring, but I need to archive stuff like this in some other place than the steel trap of my mind (which is more like a colander...)!!

Isn't this pic just darling??? I love to watch him sleep!!!! I do let him sleep on his tummy during his afternoon nap, since I'm checking on him frequently. I don't want his head to get a funny shape from sleeping on his back all the time. Check out his butt...Matt and I always laugh, "Do these cloth diapers make my butt look big??" Um, yes Levi, they do. How are the cloth diapers going, you ask? We LOVE them!!! We use a combination of prefolds (think of your basic rectangle piece of cloth that you twist or fold into a diaper on them and cover with plastic or wool or whatever pants) and all-in-ones (basically a regular diaper just like Pampers or Huggies, but made out of cloth and has snaps). They work great, hold blowouts of biblical proportions that I KNOW no disposable could ever hold, and he never has a rash. And oddly, you never smell his poop. I can't explain why. I've put a disposable on him two or three times, and each time when he had his usual thunderstorm-in-his-pants during a feeding, I was suddenly immersed in a brown cloud. Never have that when he's wearing his cloth dipes. But yeah, they work great, are not extra "work" or emotionally taxing or any of the other things people seem to think that cloth diapers are...I have an extra load of laundry every few days but I throw it in before I go to bed, hit the button for the second cycle when I'm up for one of his feedings, and throw it in the dryer when I'm up for another feeding or in the morning. We're saving money in the long run, don't have to make runs to the store because we ran out of diapers, etc etc. Diggin' it.

So it drives me barking NUTS when Blogger flips my pictures, but I can't flip it back. But I just love this one!! Look at that little boy face!! He looks more and more like a boy every day. He's a SOLID boy. He has these amazingly squishy cheeks and chubby thighs, but other than that he's not fat, he's just all boy. Matt and I visited my work yesterday, and we weighed him for the heck of it...subtract a little here and there for clothing, diaper, etc, but he's about 12 1/2 pounds!!! And he's LONG! He just looks so much older than six weeks to me!! (gulp!)

Someone let me borrow this snowsuit for now. Absolutely hysterical. I actually used it that day and was very glad I had it! But why can I not stop thinking of Ralphie in Christmas Story??

He's starting to smile real smiles. I can't get enough of it. I will pull out an Oscar-winning performance and make a complete fool of myself just to get a hint of one. My faves are the wide-open-mouth, eyes-wide-and-twinkling smiles. They don't come very often, but oh they're beautiful!

He's holding his head up quite a bit - I've even set him in his little Bumbo seat a couple of times (he's not quite ready for it YET, but he actually did pretty well). He pushes himself up on his feet when I'm holding him, particularly when he's having a cow about something. His cry is very boy-ish and it cracks me UP. He's cooing quite a bit, and the other night it seemed like we had a full conversation - I'd say something, and he'd chirp back...I'd respond, and a second later he yipped...I said something else, and he cooed again...it's just so amazing to see this little person who wasn't even two cells a year ago, and now he's growing into a person. Yeah, some of it is because we provide a good environment for him to grow, but all of the credit ultimately goes to God. Levi is fearfully and wonderfully made, and he's ours to nurture and teach and shepherd. What an awesome weight of responsibility and what a delight!!

God is Good.

2010-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

(Insert scream HERE)

(Insert sad whimper HERE)

Day started for Matt around 0340. Bless that dear man's heart, he takes any feeding after 3am before he gets ready for work. Unfortunately for him, lately Levi's been snoozing solidly...until about 3:30 or 4. He eats, and then he chirps and yips in his bed until I get up around 7.

It started like any other morning. I got up and pumped, Matt changed Levi's diaper and handed him off to me, and I fed him.

Halfway through, what should have been a simple burp was a projectile return of the goods...with extraordinary gusto. Huh. Change of plans. I'll shower sooner rather than later. On my way out of the shower, the little twinge in my back/hip that I started noticing last night yelped at me when I bent over to replace the pacifier. Guess the bad body mechanics I'm sure I've been using for the past several weeks in bending and lifting my sweet baby have come back to bite me. Levi's starting to melt down. I'm starting to feel grumpy.

Not surprisingly, partway through my breakfast, Levi was like "Waaaaiiiitttt a second....why is MY tummy so empty???" and started to howl. Mean Mom decrees that he needs a bath before he needs to eat - but a sponge bath will do since he just had a good dunking yesterday. Perch him on the guest bed in his room, strip him down, fill a basin. Diaper is majorly full. I spit-shine him, and move to the blowout area. Gave that a good, thorough cleaning (Levi was quite displeased at this point, because clearly the growling tummy due to the earlier evacuation of his breakfast was MY fault) and am JUST about complete when a chubby little foot hooks into the basin and tips it...all over the bed and carpet. Poop-infused water. Fab. More laundry. And what is a little boy to do thereafter??? Pee!! All over mommy's exquisite new t-shirt (see above). I got it for free at the meat market. It shows a stick person chasing a steak and says, "I exercise just so I can eat more." Very fitting for me.

I was feeling a little discontent yesterday. The sky is gray. Getting out with Levi is a production that I reserve only for very necessary trips because I'm still getting in my groove of executing them with any semblance of finesse. Exercise goes on the back burner. Sadly, so does my quiet time with the Lord. I get a little lonely. Nothing anyone else doesn't feel from time to time. An early case of The Bummers enhanced by a new baby.

So in the middle of all of this this morning (post-projectile, pre-pee), I'm at the kitchen table wrapped in a blanket of inexplicable blah. For some reason I glanced at the calender and my eyes settled on a date I will not forget in this lifetime.

Ohhhhh. The day my heart dissolved.

A year ago yesterday, we found out that our Glory Baby was going to be a Glory Baby, and not an earth-bound baby.

It shouldn't surprise me that a quiet sob still teases the back of my throat when I think of that sweet baby that we had already grown to cherish. When I started decorating for Christmas last week, it rushed upon me so quickly and unexpectedly that I had to make a quick exit to gather myself (Sarah and Lisa, I covered it well!). A year ago I was decorating and still savoring that delicious secret that we were anticipating springing upon the family on Christmas Day. I pictured that a year later I would be hanging ornaments on the tree while balancing a baby on my hip...or whirling around the living room with our baby when a fun Christmas song came on...or whatever.

And then my heart dissolved on that one day.

And God is so kind, isn't He??? He is sovereign, and only He knew what joy awaited us. Only He knew that next Christmas, I WOULD be hanging ornaments on the tree one-handed while Levi filled the other...that I WOULD be whirling around the living room with a wide-eyed Levi whenever that fun song by Trans-Siberian Orchestra comes on (Wizards in Winter, I think??). That the most beautiful music in my house would be the chirps and yips of a lively baby, or the soft coos and sighs of a sleeping one. He DID bring beauty from ashes. He didn't have to. I don't deserve it. I was prepared to accept whatever He brought, even if I didn't like it.

So I sat at the table crying into my oatmeal, because little did I know a year ago, on that awful, awful day when I stared at a mockingly empty ultrasound screen, that here I'd be with spitup stains on my clothes, poop-water on my carpet, and yet another pee-soaked load of baby clothes in the laundry queue. Looking at a darling, perfect, gorgeous little boy who knows how to dial my number with one wide-eyed blink! Whose cheeks I could just suck right off his face. Whose sleeping form I can hardly take my eyes off of. Whose sassy cry is like music to my ears.

God IS good. All the Time.

So sorry!!!

2010-11-30T05:29:00.001-08:00

(A rare moment with eyes open for the camera!!!)

I know, it's been about two and a half weeks since I last posted!!!! A lot of people are asking for more pictures! I can't beLIEVE how much time one little person can take up in my day. Even now I'm sitting here blogging and know I'm taking a huge risk...when I really should be taking advantage of some downtime to take a shower! BUT - we got a jump start this morning at 4:30, so I figured, why not just start my day? I mean, who doesn't love starting their day at 0430??? So we've already done one cycle of feeding/playtime/work out/fold laundry/eat breakfast/etc. Yes, I said "work out." I did pull out a Biggest Loser video. I had energy, I went with it.

Levi is NOT a fussy baby, thank the Lord!!! He "chirps" and yips at times, and when he gets really mad it only lasts a few minutes. He's pretty obvious about what he wants (duh, like any newborn I guess!) but he doesn't just fuss for the sake of fussing like many babies do. He goes down in his crib when he's ready to sleep. He's just a good kid. :) We're figuring each other out, for sure.

I'm taking dinner to a friend today who just had her little boy this past weekend. Just a year ago we were both sobbing in each other's arms at church, mourning our own losses. Little did we know that in God's timing we'd each rejoice in the birth of our sons!!! He is so good! He's good when we mourn and He's good when we celebrate.

Okay, so I stink at taking pictures. My darn camera (well, it's actually the darn user, not the camera's fault) has this red-eye reduction feature on it, so even when I've turned the flash OFF, this little light STILL comes on and flashes in Levi's face and makes him close his eyes and scowl. So I have THE HARDEST time getting pictures with his eyes open. And then I just give up. So I took a video of him one day last week, and it's SO cute because he's cooing and making these little kissing sounds with his lips like he does when he's hungry, but Blogger won't let me load it. Argh. Anyway, here are some more recent pics....

Modeling his new hat aunt Elizabeth made...

Tummy time with Daddy...he really looks like he's interested in his toys here...but he's not...

He LOVES when Matt reads to him. There's a pattern emerging here...Daddy is WAY more fun than Mommy! Levi acts totally enamored with Matt and he scowls at me.

Starting to hold his head up!

This pic is a bit blurry, but it's the best display of his Thanksgiving outfit! The hat says "Baby's 1st Thanksgiving" and I LOVE the turkey feathers on top!!! (He yakked on the onesie pretty early in the day...isn't that just the way it goes?)

Still pretty displeased with the bath routine in the morning...but we're getting better...note the scowl...

Hanging out with Grandpa on Thanksgiving!

Hopefully my next post won't be so far off!!! And I'd really like to post actual thoughts, really I would. I have a couple of posts rattling around in my head, but, shoot, look at how long it took me just to load pictures on!!! So we'll see when that happens!!!

Already growing so fast!

2010-11-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

Here are a few snaps from the past week or so...he's already growing so fast! I feel like every morning his face looks a little different. He's growing fabulously - 9lbs even at his checkup this past Friday! Clearly he's gobbling his food pretty well!

Gramma Sue came last week to help out....he LOVED the snuggle-time!

Token shot of me...I'm like, okay, there are a lot of pictures of Levi, Levi and Daddy...but where's Mommy???? So here I am.

He LOVES playtime with Daddy! Matt always manages to captivate him!

That's about all for now. I will write more profound thoughts at a later time! Too pooped right now!!!

Tummy Time

2010-11-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

Tell me you don't want to suck the cheeks straight off this baby!

Delicious.

Good Food and Gratitude

2010-11-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

Just look at this sweet baby!! We have so much to be grateful for. Yes, we are experiencing life with a newborn and everything that comes with it. Like, the sleepless nights. As you can see, this is what Levi thinks of sleeping at night:

The first few nights, he morphed from a sweet, docile baby to a head bobbing-and-weaving, screaming, baby-bird-mouth-open-wide, falling apart mess. Matt and I have been doing "shifts" where one will stay up from 8pm till 2am, and then we switch. But man, one of those nights we were both up wondering WHAT the heck was going on with this...this...child.

But I have to count it all joy. Matt had to remind me of that as I started to join Levi in meltdown mode around 4am the other morning. And I do count it all joy. Nearly a year ago we had our own loss. There are countless families who are grieving out there right now and their arms are empty...whether due to infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, or the fact that their baby is in the ICU on a vent, with a birth defect, a horrible infection, or born too early for words to describe. And they would give ANYthing to be up at all hours listening to their baby cry, frustrated with feedings, feeling hung over from lack of sleep.

Alas, the morning comes, and THEN what does he think of sleep???...

Of course!!

I'm so grateful that we live in the community that we do...our church community, my work friends, our neighbors...God is so kind to us. Our fridge is STUFFED full of food (I had to clean, rearrange, and shuttle stuff to the freezer this morning to make space!) from our Sunday School class and community group. We have at least two weeks' worth of meals coming, and that's just from church alone!! That doesn't even count friends from work who are asking when they can drop something off!! It's unbelievably humbling. We're so well cared for. Twice this week friends from work came to rock and love on Levi while Matt and I crawled upstairs for a two-hour nap. I mean, who does that? Carolyn and Michele, thank you SOOO much!

I'm grateful for how good I feel, barely a week after delivering this little moose! (I know there are far bigger babies, but we simply were not expecting to have a baby who was 8 1/2 lbs to come out of me!) My ankles and legs up to my knees were so puffy it looked like I had been inflated with a bicycle pump. Parts of me were beyond painful and sore (won't expound, but ladies, you know what I'm talking about). But I've been able to get out for a walk (that's why Levi is so super-bundled up there). Heading out to the pediatrician felt divine! Today I woke up and had my feet back. And I could put my wedding rings on again. I could even put my regular jeans on thanks to the help of a Bella Band (I know, it's the same as wearing maternity jeans, but it just felt nice to wear something different). Ahhhhhh.

I'm SO grateful for my dear husband, who is an AMAZING daddy!!! Matt has stepped up more than I could ever have asked...learning how to diaper Levi (with cloth prefolds, no less!), dress him, and feed him...comforting him, staying up with him, snuggling him, singing to him, reading to him, doing laundry, washing bottles, cheering me on when I get frustrated...I mean, he's just been unbelievable. Way more than I could EVER ask. Thank you so much, my Matt.

And just look at this sweet baby!!! When I look at this face, I just think, he can cry until kingdom come and it would still be the sweetest sound in the universe. It's not lost on me how many hearts are broken because their own dear babies' cries won't be heard in this life.

But I do appreciate the times when he's sleeping peacefully....

And laugh at the times when he just utterly melts down...like today during his bath -

(meltdown following bath...)

(still melting down...)

(Getting better...)

(Ahhhhh!!! Daddy saves the day every time!)

First day home

2010-11-01T17:00:00.001-07:00

On our way home Sunday!!! Me and one of my work besties, Michele...

Hanging out with Daddy...

Asleep in his little crib...

On our way out on the town!!! (Well, to Carter's to exchange all the girl clothes he doesn't need and the newborn clothes he doesn't fit!)

Welcome, Baby Levi!

2010-10-30T04:03:00.000-07:00

Welcoming our sweet little boy, Levi Matthew!!

Born October 29th, 2010 at 7:33am
8lbs 6oz (a little more than we anticipated!)
20 1/2 inches long

A few minutes after birth...getting checked over and weighed

Checking out Daddy...

First bath with aunt Carolyn (my buddy who was our nurse yesterday)

A sweet sleeper (well, on the first day anyway)

This picture looks a whole lot like a newborn picture of ME!

I'll tell more about how the delivery went later, but wanted to get some pictures up!!

Nope

2010-10-26T13:03:00.001-07:00

Nothing to report. Nada. Zilch.

Many thought I'd go into labor during the full moon.

Nope.

It's not for lack of trying. I walked with Matt every night this weekend when he "poop-walked" Molly, and gazed at the moon the whole time. But.......no.

And then this low-pressure system (like the lowest low-pressure system EVER) arrived, and.........no. Not yet.

So I'm sorry, inquiring minds, I wish I had more to report!!! As much as I'm like, "C'monnnn!!!!!!" I still have to remember: I'm a first-time mom, and I'm not even 39 weeks. Barring an induction, I may have had no business expecting to deliver for two more weeks. That's just the way it is. I just really want to go into labor prior to said induction, and it probably just won't happen! Oh well!!! I'll enjoy one more day!!

Less than 2 weeks!

2010-10-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

Less than two weeks left until I either spontaneously go into labor (full moon next weekend, baby!) or am induced!

We're all ready...room: check.

Laundry: check. Diapers washed and ready: check. (Thank you, Beary, for being such a willing participant.)

Carseat adjusted and bases installed: check.

(Cute picture of Matt, BAAAAAD example of proper strap adjustment. Though it's surprising how many people will put their baby in the carseat this way, because when they properly tighten the straps the baby cries...*and we sure can't have that!!!* Um, if you want to continue to appreciate the cry of your sweet baby after you get rear-ended, stop hard, or get in an accident, you'll adjust them properly!)

Much better!!!! Beary is now safe!

Pediatrician chosen: check. Check, check, check.

Here's the 37-week shot...

And remember this sweet face at 20 weeks???

Here it is at 36 weeks...

I know, kind of a blurry shot, and then it's a picture of a picture, so it's even worse...but if you cock your head to the right, you're looking straight on at it - you see the shadow of an eye socket, a nose, and a pouty little mouth and chin, and slightly chubbier cheeks than a few months ago!!

Well, soon we'll be posting pictures of the real deal and you won't have to use your imagination!!

Breaking up is hard to do

2010-10-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Facebook,

I've been thinking about this for quite some time and can't get away from the niggling thought that perhaps our relationship has come to an impasse.

I want to break up with you, but I just can't.

Being with you is like being in a loser dating relationship. Okay, maybe that's kind of harsh. Being with you is like being in a relationship that's not all that great, but not all that bad. I mean, it's not like you're BAD for me, really. But I'm more dismayed with you than I am pleased.

At first, it was bliss. It was like, instead of having to drive all over town to see each friend individually - which would be a cumbersome activity for one day, or even one week - I had discovered it was like walking into a coffee shop where all of my nearest and dearest AND people with whom I probably never would have reconnected are all there at once!!!! And we can gab, catch up, see what's changed, get that quick update on how a doctor's appointment went, exchange that recipe, share a quick laugh, and exclaim over wedding or vacation or baby pictures. I mean, that's pretty sweet. Where DID so-and-so end up? You mean they live right down the street? NO WAY!!! Connections are made, bridges are built, you don't have to wait until the class reunion to see how or where someone ended up or what they look like or did they ever end up marrying that one guy/girl? Oh my goodness, their kids look just like them...how fun. And on and on and on.

And then there's the coolness of wanting to shoot off a quick email to someone, but you don't know their email address. No worries, you can either look it up under their info, or just send them a private message right there.

Sometimes, Facebook, you do build a supportive little community. There are people that I do feel like I know a little bit better because we're "friends" and we wouldn't talk on a regular basis otherwise. Who knew that this person has some really great insight into ______? Or a quick word of encouragement could come from the person you least expect at just the right time? People ARE there to cheer with you, share a good laugh, offer a quippy reply that puts a situation in the right perspective, or just let you know they're thinking about you.

But, Facebook, you have some not-so-great sides. And that's why we're at this impasse. It's not all your fault, much of it IS mine. Maybe it's just ME that's changed and you've been this way all along and now I'm over you.

You're a supreme waste of time. I know I don't spend as much time on you as I could during the day, but I know I don't resist you as much as I could, either. I can get sucked into your abyss and easily fritter away a good half hour or more...and not necessarily to my benefit, but more or less walking away feeling drenched in the banality of it all. Do I know anyone any better now that I know they can't wait for the weekend (again), or that they reeeaaaalllly needed their chai latte SO BAD this morning, or that they stepped in what their cat ralphed on the floor?

Do I really benefit from knowing that someone "likes" yet one more thing, adding to a list that's longer than both of my arms? Oh....you like...let me see...sleeping with the fan on even when it's not hot out. Alright. (I know, I'm guilty as charged on that particular example.)

Facebook, why should I care who accessed my profile page, or who looked me up? Yet, you make me feel like I should care...maybe I DO care...who IS that interested in my life? Hmmmm....let me click here....

You cater to the attention-seeker in all of us, and is that really such a good thing? I mean, we're such a weird culture of people who want to appear fashionably oblivious and inaccessible (note the iPod buds in the ears), but our little posts are just screaming for attention, for people to "like" what we have to say, give us a little thumbs-up, a well-thought response. I'm guilty of it. I write what I think is a scintillating status update, and then I want to check and check and check to see if anyone responded, and admit I feel a little let down when no one says anything. What - that wasn't funny enough for you? My life isn't interesting enough for you to comment on? Huh? Is that what it is?

Good grief.

But then there's the people who Vaguebook. A frowny face. A *sigh.* A gloomy song lyric. Oh friend!!! What on earth is WRONG! Keep the masses wondering...did her boyfriend break up with her? Was it a really bad day at work? Oh my GOODNESS!!! Is she PREGNANT?!

Are we really keeping it real?

Clearly other people are spending more time on it than they should, just like I do. They complain about the amount of homework/housework/whatever they have...but they're clearly, um, not digging into it if they're updating their status and adding things to their "likes." They're exhausted and need to get to bed or get going or whatever....but they're...not. And I can't judge, because I do the same. I need to wash the dishes/do the laundry/crack my Bible but Facebook, I'm on YOU instead.

I might say my priorities are X,Y and Z...but the ways I spend my time reveal what my priorities REALLY are. And you, silly Facebook, are clearly more of a priority to me than other things that should take far more precedence in my life. Ewww.

But I just can't make the break. I've thought of it. But what if I miss something? What if I miss a great picture, a funny remark, or am totally, I mean totally out of the loop? What would that be like? I get a panic attack just thinking about it.

No Facebook, I can't end our relationship yet. I may be one of those silly girls who just keeps hanging on, thinking perhaps you'll change and make it easier for me to make the break. But with every friend request, every comment, every message, you suck me in a little more.

So I guess it truly is up to me to determine how you control my life and my time. It's totally up to me to discern if my words are really necessary, if I'm just trying to get some attention or if I just need to keep my mouth shut sometimes. Because even if I did break up with you, you're still only a few clicks away from resuming our full-blown, passionate relationship again. You're static; I'm the one who can choose to move closer or farther away. For where my treasure is, there is my heart.

I guess what I'm trying to say, Facebook, is that you're really not that great, but you're not all that bad, you're kind of fun, but you're really kind of stupid at the same time, but when push comes to shove, I'll end up keeping you around. Shutting you out of my life won't change the fact that my heart longs to be captivated by a series of status updates...and that says more about my heart than it says about you.

So I'm not sure how this is going to work out. Will I set a time limit each day? Declare Facebook fasts? I don't know. I'll have to take it to the One who ultimately should be captivating my heart above all others.

Love,
Jenny

Sooner rather than later?????

2010-10-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

I went to my OB appointment today. Now starts the weekly checks to see if anything is "happening." We talked about induction, decided to put the 28th on the books after all, chatted about my ultrasound...and then she checked me...

...and muttered, "Oh, you DOG."

I'm dilated to 2cm and 50% effaced!!!!!!!!!!

Might not make it to the 28th after all!! Only God knows!

(BTW - I can walk around like this for quite some time, so don't get too excited...I'm not heading to the hospital...except to work of course...)

..and counting!!!

2010-10-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

SOOOooooo...

Tomorrow is 36 weeks!!!!!! I canNOT believe we've made it to this point already!! Praise the Lord!!!!

I've struggled immensely with fear in this 30-something-week range, more than the first and second trimesters combined. When you have a first-trimester loss, it's awful, but for some reason I can wrap my mind around it a little better. Second trimester is horrid, because there really is a little person that you can hold and touch and see. You get into the viability range (23, 24 weeks) and you breathe somewhat of a sigh of relief, but you're kidding yourself if you think you're out of the woods yet. I breathed an eNORmous sigh of relief when I got past 28 weeks, because most 28-weekers I've taken care of turned out quite well. Sailed past 30 weeks, danced for joy at 32 (Holland keeps 32 weekers!! Provided they don't need a vent or something)...and then - oh my goodness. Wait a sec. We're fully in this thing now. The baby's room is ready. The showers are being thrown. People stop you on the street to ask when you're due, because now there's really no question about if you're pregnant or just...um, looking pregnant. A loss would be more devastating with each day. Did it move enough today? Wait...it's been several hours. Are my blood sugars too high and I don't even know it, between my really good ones after meals? My rational self competes with my way-too-much-knowledge-for-my-own-good self, topped with a hint of my ability to compLETEly irrational and dwell on the worst case scenario.

I have a small handful of girls to whom I go for accountability, and they've been praying for me in this area. And man, God has answered their prayers over the past couple of weeks. He HAS been showing me what my fear really is...an idol to which I'd rather cling than to Him. Fear gives me some semblance of control - I can Google symptoms, can access a variety of books and sites to answer my every question, heck - I can grab a doppler or have a fellow nurse put me on a fetal monitor to reassure me things are going well. I can obsess, ruminate, conjure up ideas...rather than just running to the One who is creating this child in the first place, whose days are already numbered and listed in His book, the One who will give him or her their very first breath...!!!!

Anyway, I think we'll soon have the date officially, but it's looking like I'll be induced the last week of this month. It's standard for gestational diabetics to be induced at 39 or 39 1/2 weeks - even if the baby has been measuring normal all along, it's still safest to catch it before it could potentially get too big. I'm 39 weeks on October 28th. My OB caught me in the hall at work yesterday and asked if I was thinking about induction dates, so we briefly chatted, and I'm sure we'll nail down an actual plan at my appointment this week. I could do it the 28th, or wait until November 1st (because I don't want to do it on the weekend, I don't want a baby sharing a birthday with any holiday if I can help it). For a handful of reasons I think I'll go with the 28th. That's 3 weeks away!!!!!! Aye!!!!! But we're so ready. I am at least...I think Matt's still wrapping his mind around it. ;)

I need to throw this on the table. I've done a lot of thinking about this, well before we even got pregnant. Much of it comes from a handful of years working on a postpartum unit and consoling moms who are exhausted, emotional, and falling apart because they're so overwhelmed and have so much to learn before they go home and take on this little person on their own. Anyway, we will SO look forward to the fun of introducing our Little Bird to everyone who has loved and prayed for him or her along the way...but we plan to do that primarily after we get home rather than in the hospital. Part of it is because since I'm delivering where I WORK, I'll already have a built-in parade of well-wishers who have been my cheerleading squad, 36hrs a week for the past, well, 36-ish weeks. :) In addition to resting, learning to breastfeed (hopefully!), and having the usual visits from doctors, medical records, parent advocates, nurses, etc etc. Additionally, I'm delivering as cold and flu season is starting to get into full swing and want to keep visitors to a minimum for the first couple of days. So if after we deliver you notice we're keeping it on the down-low, I really want to make it clear that in no way are we trying to leave anyone out or hurt any feelings. Once we're home, we'll gladly welcome visitors!!! But during those first few days it'll just be family and a small handful of our closest friends.

Granted, as a pregnant woman, I fully reserve the right to compLETEly change my mind at any given moment, and as soon as that baby is born, I may command that bleacher seats be set up IMMEDIATELY to accommodate the adoring public. ;) But for right now that's not the plan. :)

I have an ultrasound in about 45 minutes so I better fill my bladder (*sip* - DONE!) and get ready. I'll post pictures if they don't turn out scary-looking like my last ones.

Five weeks to go!!!

2010-09-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

Soooo....the nursery is pretty much done. The bouncy seat, swing, and pack-n-play are assembled. The laundry is done. We went to the childbirth class. We hee-hee-hoooo'd and bounced on the so-called "birthing ball." We'll install the car seat bases this weekend. (A hint: when you have a baby, please-please-please show up to the hospital already having an idea of how to use your carseat, how to adjust the straps, etc. They're not easy to figure out on the fly and can lead to much swearing and angst as you're rearing to finally go home. Please don't show up with the base attached to the carseat, or worse, with the seat still in the box!)

I guess we're ready? Because in two or three weeks, the waiting (the major, nail-biting waiting!) starts. Preferably in three weeks, because 38 weeks is really considered term. 37-weekers can still be kind of squirrely and sit on the fence.

Are we ready? I think so. Am I afraid of the delivery? Well, I'm not really looking forward to it, but I'm not freaked out either like I know a lot of women are. It's understandable and reasonable to be freaked out, but I just don't feel it. It'll happen how it happens, and that's that!! If I want drugs or an epidural, I'll get them. If I end up needing a c-section, that's the way it is. I trust the judgment of everyone with whom I work and know we're all in good hands.

Here are the "finished" pics of the baby's room...just a few more things need to go up (birdie mobile, curtains, crib skirt, etc)!!

(This is the verse from Jeremiah - "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'")

And I have to give a major shout-out to my sweet Matt, who has more than picked up the slack around here as I slow down!!! Not only is he working his normal hours and commuting while he's at it, in addition to his regular breakfast "dates" each week to meet with his accountability guys, etc, he's pretty much doing EVERYTHING else around the house. Vacuuming. Laundry. Changing the sheets. Dishes. Scrubbing the bathtub. Walking the dog. Watering the flowers. And on and on and on. I honestly think that the house is actually cleaner than when I'm doing all that stuff!!!!! But he does it without complaint, and when I start to fuss about feeling like a useless blob, he stops me and says, "Your job is to grow a baby. I'll do everything else." I ask you, how many men will do all that????

I feel like I'm starting to "drop" but can't tell. I don't feel like I look any different. But today I felt like I was waddling. There's more pressure in my pelvis. There is sometimes a stunning amount of pressure on my bladder and then I pee like a teaspoon. Normally I tool around at my usual pace and even forget momentarily that I'm pregnant...but today as I ran errands I just felt, I don't know, slow and like I had to hold up my stomach or something. Experienced moms, please feel free to inform the newbie here!!!!

I'm not really inclined to say that I'm "nesting;" rather I'm more in a calculated pseudo-panic. "Pseudo" because I'm truly not panicked and crazy, but I'm trying to work at a pace that would make one think that I'm panicked. My friend Mary was so wise when she was pregnant...she would think, "If the baby were born this week, what would I freak out about the most?" and then she'd make that her project (set up the crib, install the carseat, etc). So I've been methodically getting all the biggie projects done so I wouldn't come to that point, and now I'm basically forcing myself to "nest," as in make extra meals to freeze, stock up on storage items, clean things out to make space, etc. I'd rather, um, nap all day and do not feel this "burst of energy" of which others speak!!! Yet. Maybe that's to come.

Anyway, thank you for your prayers so far and your encouragement. I can't believe we're so close to the final lap!!! I'm scared and probably more neurotic during these last weeks than I was in the first and second tri's combined, honestly. But that's a different blog post. God is teaching me through my fear, and I'll leave it at that for now. :)

Four years?!

2010-09-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

(Sorry this is really long. You don't have to read it. I needed to sit on the couch and reflect on some memories and you're welcome to join me!)

Amazing how much your life can look so different in a small handful of years...

I think I just realized that it was about five years ago this weekend (or thereabouts) that I met Matt. Whoa. Have I told you the story about how we met? It's a good one...at least we think it is. ;)

If you've read this blog long enough, you may know - or have figured out - that I left Michigan about five years ago, having no idea exactly where I'd end up, for how long, or anything. I mean, it was a well-planned and well-executed move; it's not like I woke up and yelled, "ForGET it! I'm getting the heck out of DODGE!" and hit the road. I just slowly started to crumble during that past year for a variety of reasons. I was working nights and unable to sleep for beans, even when I took Ambien AND three Benadryl. The NICU had been crazy-busy and the number of babies I took care of and watched die was starting to creep up into two hands' worth of fingers instead of one (and I had only been there for a few years). I was in a relationship that was suspended in that frustrating "ummm...is this EVER going to go ANYWHERE?" status for at least three years. So to say I was tired and disillusion would be putting it very lightly. I decided that A) I could probably find a way to work as a nurse AND be outside - that's where I came up with camp nursing!, and B) if I pulled up my anchor and let my boat pull away from the dock, the boy from said relationship could either watch me pull away with his hands in his pockets, or jump in and swim after me. Well, it quickly became apparent that that would never happen. I was broken-hearted, but I had my answer and knew I made the right decision.

My dear, sweet Alero has a clipping from a (National Geographic Adventure! *sobbbbb*) magazine taped in it that says, "Home is where the car is." There's another one that says, "Your entire life should be an adventure." My car would soon be my one earthly constant. My stuff was in storage. I was headed to this random place in the San Juans called Sonlight Christian Camp for the summer. After that...who knew?

Summer ended...camp was over...I had no job. I was mildly freaked out but not too badly yet. I had a friend with whom I could crash in Los Angeles, who was a travel nurse there. I made the drive to southern California alone...crashing on a couch (of someone I had met that summer) in New Mexico; relaxing in Flagstaff, AZ (which was comforting, I had just lived there the year before); and making that long journey on I-40 through hours and hours of desert and heat.

I arrived in LA and within minutes was acutely aware that I did not fit in there. I was in Orange County and had taken an exit and was sitting at a stoplight surrounded by luxury cars - Lexuses, Beamers, Mercedes, etc etc etc. Not one American-made vehicle that I could see in my mirrors. I was driving a loaded-down Olds that had a summer's worth of dirt caked on the sides (I'm not joking) from living in the middle of the mountains, with a dirty mountain bike racked on top. I felt like a total loser...and I hadn't even put my car in park yet. I was like, WHAT am I DOING here? Have I made a royal mistake?

Life in LA did not pan out. I slept on my friend's floor for about a week. We did head up the Pacific Coast Highway and went camping at Big Sur (amazing!), but all the while I was frantically on the phone with my recruiter, and with other companies - both local and national - trying to find a nursing assignment. No dice.

And then my recruiter told me about an opening in Walnut Creek, in the San Francisco Bay area. Three days later, it was nailed. I felt more peace than I had felt in months at the thought of it, like I was actually going home...even though I had never been there, knew no one, had no address.

It's a no-brainer to say that clearly God was firmly keeping shut a door that I was reeealllly trying to pry open. I'm so grateful he answers some of our prayers with a firm *no!*

So this is where Matt comes into the picture. I met Matt about two weeks after I showed up in the Bay area. The weekend I got there, I went straight to church at a little place called Valley Vineyard. Immediately I was invited to a Bible study-type event that took place on Sunday evenings at someone's house. Starving for normalcy, I went, and to my dismay, was surrounded by married couples...not that I was scoping out the scene or anything, I just wanted to make friends with other singles and not feel like the outcast that I felt like in West Michigan. But this dear, dear couple immediately took me under their wing that night, giving me maps of the East Bay (where I lived), inviting me to dinner and movies at their house (with their five darling little kids), inviting me out for coffee on their date nights (who DOES that?). Already God put me in a family, just like He promises to do for the lonely.

The following week when I went to the Bible study I showed up late...I grabbed my food and strolled into the living room to find a seat, and there was this smiling, kind-looking guy sitting there. He was in my little discussion group (yippee! I thought) and seemed like the most gentle person. His name was.....Matt. :)

I went home. I thought about it for a couple of days. I pulled out my journal, and wrote to God, basically, I think I'd like to date someone again...and far be it from me to offer suggestions to You, but if I may, that Matt guy seems like he'd be a good start. I mentioned to the Lord that I needed someone to pursue ME instead of the other way around this time. I needed someone to show me that I was worth at least that much.

The next week: I show up to the group again. Matt sat by me when we all ate. He even shared dessert with me (and you KNOW that the way to my heart is through my stomach!). Bible study ended a while later...I was waiting...waiting...will he ask me out??...waiting...everyone's leaving, only a few of us left....argh....okay, never mind, guess I misread all those signals...g'night. I left. My foot was in the door of my car when I suddenly heard, "JENNY! Wait!!!" and I kid you not, there's Matt, running across the yard after me. I think I actually said to myself, "Son of a jackal, that man is literally pursuing me." He asked me out on a date...I was skeptical as to whether it really was a date in the next weeks leading up to it - what if he was on the church's Welcome Wagon committee and it was his turn to take out the newbie???? - but he wanted to take me up to the Napa Valley, where he was from, for an afternoon drive. It would be October by then, and the grape leaves would be turning color and you could smell the crush...and he thought it might remind me of fall at home.

But was he the church creepy dude who stalked every new girl? I had to find out. Thank God again for the dear family who had adopted me...I was able to call them and get some insight and have my mind put at ease.

We had our first date after church two weeks later. I wasn't sure what to think.

He took me for a hot dog at Costco.

His truck had Spongebob Squarepants floor mats.

I was like, oh my.

The following week we didn't really talk, we just had made plans to go hiking on Mt. Diablo after church again. I wrestled with whether or not I really even wanted to go, and what would I say? I had conflicting feelings about getting into a relationship, if that's where this was headed.

I can't really explain what changed my heart on that Sunday, but it did. We dirted our plans to hike on Mt. D. and headed up Valley to see Matt's dad's family, who were having a big cookout that afternoon. Again, I'm like, how can this be? I've barely been here for a few weeks, and I'm going to a cookout? In the Napa Valley? With a big family? Huh?

But I think that's when I realized, that day, that I could really start to love Matt. He was fun and gentle and kind and thoughtful. People clearly loved him and thought highly of him.

We had a blast dating...I wanted to do all the fun touristy things that he had never done even though he lived there. We shopped at Union Square and took the trolley to the Embarcadero and ate huge sundaes at Ghiradelli Square and did the "spooky" night tour of Alcatraz. We hiked in the Marin Headlands and drove up the Pacific Coast Highway and biked in Monterey on Sunday afternoons. He was an assistant t-ball coach and we went to games and cheered our friends' kids on.

Four months later, Matt was willing to *gulp* ask my dad for permission to marry me...on the same weekend that they had just MET. But he did just that, waiting for our table to be called on the balcony of the Cheesecake Factoryin downtown San Francisco.

Seven months after that we got married.

And now we're gonna have our first little baby.

Oh my goodness. I'm so glad I took that leap of faith and drove across the country in my little Alero. I'm so glad the guy didn't jump in off the dock and come after me. I'm so glad the gig in LA didn't work out after all. Because if any of those things had or had not happened, I wouldn't be married to the dearest man on earth!!! I'm not gonna lie: our first year was rough. We barely knew each other, really. We were prideful, set-in-our-ways people. We spent that first year in counseling. It didn't help that Matt lost his job and we lived in three different states in a very short amount of time. But God has been faithful to grow us and connect our hearts.

Tomorrow is our four-year wedding anniversary. I can't believe how much we've both changed since then...and by the same token, we still have some of the same struggles we had our first year...and we might have those same struggles 20 years from now. Marriage hasn't made our life perfect. It hasn't made our lives complete, either - only Christ can complete us, we firmly believe that. We don't meet every single need that the other has, because only Christ can do that, too. But it's good. Every year is better than the one before it. We're on a great adventure together!!

Who knows what the next five years will bring...but I'm praising the Lord that we're in it together!!! I love you, my Matt!!! Love, Your Jenny.

Entitlement...

2010-09-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

So have you seen the letter circulating of FB written by a doctor to Mr. Obama pointing out that the problem with our health care "crisis" lies not in lack of money, insurance, or providers but in a cultural "entitlement" mindset? It's very articulate, respectful, and I think appropriate.

I struggle with this big-time. The longer you're in a health care profession, the more cynical and judgmental you become if you don't keep yourself in check. I'm speaking for myself here too.

I'm not gonna lie: I get very frustrated when I take care of patients who are on some form - or all forms, as it may be - of assistance, but they are able to afford hair extensions, manicures and pedicures, tattoos, cigarettes, and expensive phones with unlimited texting and data plans. I'm just as frustrated when I stand behind someone at the grocery store who has two orders of food: the healthy stuff that their assistance card will pay for, and then the *other* order: all manner of chips, pop, and frozen pizzas. And I think, um, the junk food costs well more than the other stuff you're buying. So if you put it all away, you'd be able to afford the stuff you actually need, AND have money left over.

People balk when I tell them I can't send them home with a week's worth of diapers and formula, and the hospital doesn't provide cribs or carseats, and the mechanical breastpump they've been using isn't theirs to keep...and the receiving blankets are not to be taken home as souvenirs (um, they're not that cute - why do people always want to keep them??). The linens and supplies in their room's closet aren't theirs either (seriously? What is so attractive about puke basins and postage stamp-sized towels?).

I'm perplexed. Matt and I live on a comfortable double-income, but very frequently we have to have the conversation about what other ways can we be more mindful of our spending so we can save a little more here and there. We nearly canceled our cable AND land-line not too long ago just because we were like, 'Do we reeeaaallly need those?' Matt went to Prime Care a few months ago for something and the bill was outrageous just for a few minutes face-to-face with a nurse and a doctor and a tube of hydrocortisone cream. My Prime Care trips for things like urinary tract infections resulted in similar bills. And I'm an employee at the hospital that runs these places!! You'd think there'd be a break!! But no, we paid them and moved on. We just decided to "spring" for call waiting and caller ID on our phone and a limited texting plan on my cell. Like, things add up fast.

I believe in living debt-free (easier said than done, easier said than done), but not to be able to increase our own wealth or standard of living, but to be able to increase our standard of giving. Because even in living debt-free, it's not supposed to be all about me.

And I want to provide for the needy. There are some hard-working, very unfortunate people we encounter every day. They've made every possible cut in their lives, and it's still not enough. They live on next to nothing but are still told they make "too much" to qualify for assistance that would greatly help them. They're desperately looking for a job, and the two or three that they have barely cut it and don't provide benefits.

So my struggle lies in how do I look compassionately on those who are less fortunate without judging the things they already have? And how do I reconcile living in a culture that screams "Because you're worth it..." and "Have it your way..." - for heaven's sakes, if those slogans are just applied to makeup and fast-food, how much more do we apply it to the bigger things, like health care and public assistance? Isn't that really the problem? We deserve a better life...we have a right to ______ (fill in the blank)...everyone needs ____ (yet another blank to fill in). Really? Do we really? Is health care a right? Or is it a privilege? I have my thoughts and opinions, but I don't know if they necessarily reflect the truth. And on one hand I'm a nurse, and of course with that is an inherent desire to come alongside people and help them. And on the other hand, I'm a nurse, and one of my primary responsibilities therein is to equip my patients to function to the best of their ability without needing me...because they won't have me when they go home.

Our country and culture are caught in an ugly, ugly cycle. We think we should be able to live the way that we want to live, and then when the consequences roar up on us, we should be able to have it fixed. We want to keep our vices and bad habits and are more than willing to pay for them, but when those consequences DO roar up, we're indignant at the suggestion to shell out the money for that too. And to have someone suggest that taking care of that bill is our responsibility is pegged as judgmental. But isn't it just...wise???

I have no concrete answer, but I do believe, along with the doctor who wrote the note circulating on FB, that reform of any kind (though he speaks specifically to health care) starts at the individual level. Taking responsibility for that which we ourselves can change. And what we can't change, leaning heavily on the sanctifying grace of God to sever our vices and our sins at the root in our hearts. It begins with a huge cultural change in mindset - we are NOT entitled to everything under the sun, we can't always have what we want...and sometimes we need to pay dearly for the things that we need. I don't like it any more than anyone else. And I want to teach our children that provision comes from the Lord and you manage the resources He's given very wisely...and when things don't go as we would like, we still give glory to Him - because as fallen creatures before a holy and just God, we really deserve a whole lot worse than what we get.

33 weeks?! And other things.

2010-09-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, 33 weeks!!! My first shower is this weekend!!! I still feel good, the gest. diabetes is well-controlled thus far, and I'm starting to realize that this little person is getting bigger by the day and will soon need to come OUT. I'm not so sure how I feel about that, so I choose not to dwell on it and figure it will unfold as it is to unfold and there's absolutely nothing I can do to truly, TRULY prepare for it, so why get all bent out of shape??

I had an ultrasound last week and the baby is measuring on the high-ish end of normal but normal nonetheless, not a honker quite yet. I was really excited to get pics and post them, and then, well, they didn't turn out nearly as cute as 20-week pics. When the baby is really teeny and has plenty of amniotic fluid to bounce around in, it's really cute and delicate. The baby is now much larger, has much less room to roam, and its scary (0n ultrasound they all look scary), pudgy little face takes up the whole screen and invites you to scream rather than coo at it!!!! So the pictures...will not be posted. Sorry.

I'm running out of steam earlier in the day than I normally do. I normally get up between 6 and 7 on my days off and go full-tilt until I go to bed. Now I get up between 6 and 7 and go full-tilt until about 11am, when the little wind-up thingy on my back starts to grind and sputter and I start to go downhill. So Matt put a sanction on my activities - namely, cooking activities. I can easily spend much of my day chopping, baking, pureeing, prepping, thawing, you name it. But then I get exhausted and find myself up to my elbows in a mess to clean and now it's time for Matt to come home and I'm starting to come unglued...now I'm allowed to do any or all of these things to my heart's content until 1pm. Then I must stop. No matter if there is no meal prepared for the evening. He will fend for himself. And then I feel like a failure.

I have a HARD TIME accepting my limitations and allowing myself to use the pregnancy card. I want my house to be clean. I want to gladly take whatever assignment I get at work. I want my fridge still full of good, healthy, homemade meals. I want to exercise. I want to NOT feel like the whiny pregnant lady who uses it as an excuse to be lazy or shirk her responsibilities. But yep, I'm tired. I'm more out of breath. My feet don't hurt but are uncomfortable after a while on them. I don't have the strength in my back like I usually do to bend over a postpartum mom trying to not-very-successfully breastfeed her baby. I can normally scoot around pretty deftly during the day but am loosely waddling by the evening.

I was on the phone with a friend from work this morning. She has four kids and is one of the sweetest, most wise women I know. Our convo was brief, but she admonished me to get my rest and allow my standards to change. She told me that she tried to still be the super-clean-house-amazing-meals-etc-etc-etc wife and mother after her first baby was born, and she regrets that she may have missed out on some of his first year of life because she was so consumed with trying to do it all just like she was able to before. So her admonition to me was to enjoy being pregnant and enjoy that baby while I can...the rest is inconsequential. Matt's been trying to say pretty much the same thing to me, but you know how it's easy to kind of brush off what your spouse says, because how could they possibly understand _____ anyway? So I'm trying to practice that more and more...so what if there are dog-hair tumbleweeds along my baseboards? And a handful of unfinished projects around the house? And dinner is kind of hodge-podge? I have a sweet little baby rolling around in my tummy and I'm a little sleepy and I'm going to sit down and blog (and gently push little elbows and knees and butt and feet back into place) instead of run around like mad. I can only do so much right now.

And bottom line is, I can only do so much on my own strength. Like, very little. I am so well aware of my limitations right now and my need to pray, "Lord, give me your strength right now." How much more do I need to depend on Him!!! Why don't I always make that my first thought and prayer? Why do I insist on trying to do everything on my own? I know part of it is because I'm full of pride and don't want to overly depend on others. Icky, icky pride. Ugh. Sever it at the ROOT!!!!

Anyway, none of this is very profound, but that's all I have the energy and capacity to do this hour. Ooooh...little head grinding on my bladder again...better go...!!!!

Where were YOU?

2010-09-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

I rolled over and rubbed my eyes and looked at the ceiling. It was rolling up on 9am. I felt like garbage...I hardly slept - yet again, as my body fitfully and resentfully adjusted to the night shift for the first time in my life. I hadn't worked the night before, but I hadn't slept much either. My friends Renee, Lauren, and Kimberly were already up, brewing coffee and eating leftover Funfetti cake for breakfast. My apartment had become the post-college crash zone for my friends who were needing a place to stay when they were in town. Three of my besties from nursing school. I had recently bought a pull-out couch to accommodate their frequent visits. Maybe the night before had been the inaugural use of that awesome couch. I can't remember.

The sun was shining, it was a beautiful morning, and I stumbled out of my room and into the living room, feeling badly for already feeling spent and grumpy. I rubbed my eyes again and had barely gotten out the words, "Holy cow guys, I slept like garbage -" when the phone rang. It was my mom - and she told me I needed to turn on the news right away. We quickly turned on my rabbit-eared borrowed TV that sat on the bright blue footlocker I used for storage when I lived in the dorm.

Along with the rest of the world, we were shocked. Kimberly canceled the interview she had scheduled for the day. It suddenly seemed...I don't know, weirdly trivial to go on a job interview when we were watching people hurtle themselves out of windows from the umpteenth floor of a burning building. Along with the rest of the world, we spent September 11, 2001 in that surreal suspension of disbelief and confusion. It was weird and transfixing and incomprehensible how much our world would be sooo different from that very second forward.

I kept the front page from the paper the next day, with the best intention to follow the quagmire of political and religious events that led up to and unfolded on 9/11. But I was - and still AM - an unsavvy political idiot and could barely muddle through the thickness of it for more than a day. I knew that this would be a defining moment in history and in my lifetime but I could barely pull back the layers and understand any of them.

Shock dissolves into awareness...which dissolves into some semblance of understanding...which gives way to a new definition of normal...which becomes accepted...which settles back into apathy. The world is different, previously unheard-of concepts are now household terms (terrorist cells? jihad? insurgents?), and...well, that's just the way it is now.

As my quintissentially professorly Modern European History prof would always say, I would do "great violence" to the subject of the war in the Middle East if I were to speak to it (in other words, I would really embarrass myself with my comp-LETE ignorance), and I see both sides, for and against our involvement in the conflict. But here's what I do know:

1) There is good in the world, and there is evil. Call a spade a spade. There are evil people with evil intentions. The people who attacked our country were misguided, misdirected people who believed a lie and harbored evil in their hearts. If someone came after my child with any semblance of evil intention, you bet your boots I'd fight back with every shred of my being. I'm not all about fighting for the sake of fighting, but if it's to defend and protect what I love most, no doubt in my mind will I be a fighter. And a good one.

2) God calls us to defend the defenseless. There are defenseless people in the world under powerful political systems who need our protection, and if we don't, who will?

3) There are families who wake up and go to bed day in and day out praying that their husband, brother, and daddy will come home. They're proud of and believe in their loved one's call to honor, serve, and protect, but they'd give ANYTHING to sit down each evening for dinner with them...to hear the garage door open and see their car pulling up the driveway each evening...to squabble over stupid, everyday things simply because that means they'd be there...and they can't. Pray for these families and support them, whether or not you've supported the war effort. Pray for the Horn family as Nick serves abroad...pray for the Zembiec family, who are grieving anew today as they mourn the loss of their son Doug...pray for the Stanley family as Jason serves Stateside..

We are under the authority of an awesome God...awesome in the truest definition of the word. Our best life is not on this earth, and peace will not rule this earth on this side of heaven. It simply will not, as long as humans are a part of it and as long as evil is allowed free reign and we have the ability to choose between what is right and what is wrong. We ARE called to protect, to defend the defenseless and fatherless, to stand up for what's right. There ARE absolutes, and we need to protect those boundaries.

We'll never know the answers as to why those horrid events happened 9 years ago, why the Lord in His sovereign authority allowed them, the facets of war are awful and complex and are simply not black and white. But we all can be so grateful for the countless Americans who very willingly gave their lives over the course of history so we can have the freedom that we do, that is so a part of our makeup we don't even realize it's freedom - we assume it should be a given.

Take time today to remember where you were, how you felt, what you thought...and remember the people who did everything they could to save the people crushed in the rubble...and remember our soldiers and their families who are a part of a cause to continue to protect us and who don't always receive the support they need from the country they've sworn to defend.

I look forward to Christ's promised return, when real peace will truly reign!!

Baby room preview

2010-09-01T10:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, finally I can give you a sneak peek at the baby room!! You may remember our flooring dilemma (we wanted to keep the hardwood, but the varnish contains lead and they won't sand it down, so we had to recarpet it)...well, the carpet was installed on Monday AND we had pretty white faux wood blinds installed (plug: Budget Blinds rocks...they have great service, good prices, and our house is addicted to the faux wood blinds). It's starting to come together!!!!

Here's the "before" picture...

Aaaannnd...post-carpet installation...

Aaaannnddd...post blind installation with the furniture back in the room...

Molly is quite pleased to have a soft floor back.

I do plan to keep the twin bed there because A) it's our only guest bed, and I'd like to keep that (baby can sleep in the pack-n-play upstairs with us in that case), and B) I plan to sleep in it for at least the first few weeks post-delivery. Our stairs are steep and I don't want to be hefting up and down them in the middle of the night after having a baby!

I do obviously need to find a bedside table and we're planning to get the dresser that matches the crib.

A couple other cute details...

Rocking chair from my fave antique/cottage store that Auntie Lisa bought...the sock monkey was one of my first baby presents from my Aunt Sue and the books on the monkey's lap were Matt's when he was a baby!

Oops!!! He's very cute, but not part of the decor...pardon me...

The tree and birdies I bought at Kohl's...if you saw my FB update yesterday, you'll know that pulling this off the backing and putting it on the wall was NOT part of my finer moments by any stretch of the imagination...I have another one (oh crumb) to put up over the crib.

And finally...I did break down and buy some clothes the other day. We have a fabulous Carter's outlet here and you can return stuff at any time. So I bought boy and girl things to have on hand, newborn and 0-3 mos. (not knowing if I'll have a normal sized baby or a moose, since I'm a gest. diabetic!), etc. If I get a ton of clothes or duplicates as gifts, these will be very easy to return. But here are the things I plan to keep:

I've had my eye on this little snow suit-ish thing for the past couple of months!!! I figure brown is cool for a boy OR a girl...

And then I bought Thanksgiving outfits!!! One for a boy, and one for a little girl. Couldn't resist. It was waaaaaay too much fun!! We probably won't be headed out for a big Thanksgiving bash quite yet when it rolls around, but will definitely make it to Christmas, Stamy family. :)

So that's it for now!! Eventually I'll have some pictures hung, and my aunt's making curtains, and once the dresser's in place, it'll be all set and ready!!! So excited (but so scared at the same time, but that's another post)! Thanks for sharing with us. I know looking at baby stuff and outfits is a little nauseating, but there are a few people who keep asking to see!!! And I hate to disappoint!!!

28 weeks!

2010-08-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the fabulous 28-week belly shot for which I know you've been waiting with bated breath!!! ;)

My short torso spit that baby straight out!!! (I'm pleased to say that my, um, backside has shrunk in comparison. Never thought I'd say THAT in my lifetime.) Little Bird only goes up and out, though, as you can see I've barely grown out to the side - YET! Fortunately, we're back to measuring "on time" instead of a week or so ahead.

I put together the crib this week...I'm trying to have all of my ducks in a row by ~35 weeks (because in my world, everyone has a baby by then, right??!!). So the crib is together, and obviously some decorating needs to be completed, but I have to wait for the new carpet to be installed at the end of the month. I do plan to take down the stuff that's hanging over the crib. And, just to clarify, the cutesy little things in the crib will be promptly removed as soon as there's a baby in it to comply with the "safe sleep" guidelines per the American Academy of Pediatrics (guess who's the Safe Sleep "champion" at Holland Hospital?). Like I tell the parents I work with: the cutest and softest thing in the crib should be the baby! So here's the crib and some cutesy stuff:

Yep, it's a mini-crib: same as the other cribs only smaller dimensions for a smaller room! It's absolutely perfect!

I found the quilt on Etsy.com, the blanket was knit by California Mommy (we have a pink one too), the froggy lovey is from my aunt Sue, and the bear in the corner was in Matt's crib when he was a baby!!!

And of course the birdie mobile I ordered off Etsy as well!!!

So that's that for now!!! Thanks for enjoying with me!!

Awwwww, MAN!

2010-08-11T07:12:00.001-07:00

I had my 28 week appointment today. I drank my fizzy, delicious little beverage full of sugar and went and had my finger pricked.

Bad news bears, man.

My blood sugar was so high (>200!!!) that I can basically forgo the three-hour test to confirm that, yes, I'm a gestational diabetic.

AUGHHHH!!!!! I KNEW things were going too well!

I burst out laughing when my OB told me - I mean, it just sounded so absurd - because I honestly thought she was kidding and would say, "HA HA! Never mind! Your sugar was actually 120!" or something like that, but she was, um, NOT kidding. I mean, I don't fall in any risk category, I exercise frequently, and eat well (I'll admit that sweets have been a major downfall of mine during pregnancy, though, and my pancreas is probably like, "Forget it").

It's just that....arghhh....it's so easy to get frustrated when you see infants of a diabetic mom. Particularly one who doesn't control it. You have to be diligent. A lot of people have to make significant diet changes. And they don't want to, nor do they see the need to, because they feel just fine. They end up having an enormous baby that looks like it was inflated with a bicycle pump (and there's a royal difference between just a "big baby" and a really, really, REAAAAALLLLY fat infant of a diabetic mom), and they think that that's just the way it is because everyone else in their family is diabetic and large, and well, "Diabetes runs in my family anyway" (to which I usually - kindly - reply: "It doesn't have to").

So when I think of being a gestational diabetic, I think, oh no...that'll be ME!

But - "It doesn't have to."

Everyone thinks it's fabulous when you have a big baby, because bigger is better, right? Wrong. It's one thing to just have a big baby if bigger babies just run in your family. It's another thing to have a big baby who is big because it's been feeding on the sugar train for months. When mom's blood sugar isn't well-controlled (and the control has to be tight), her body kicks out insulin. Insulin is a growth hormone that starts pumping that kid up. Insulin also interferes with the development of chemicals that mature the baby's lungs. And the baby's body is kicking out insulin to combat mom's high blood sugar...and when it's born, as soon as you cut the cord, yeah, mom's blood sugar supply is cut too - BUT - tell that to the baby's pancreas, which is still in the process of kicking out insulin. So baby's blood sugar takes a major dive, and it could potentially need an IV if it can't be regulated with feedings...another frustrating task, because often those babies are so huge that you can't find their veins, and your friendly Special Care nurse is muttering unholy words under her breath.

So you've potentially got a huge baby with respiratory distress and low blood sugars. And that's why bigger is not better.

In addition to the fact that the potential need for a c-section significantly increases. Most diabetic moms have to be induced because you can't just wait for labor to kick off while your (possibly) enormous kid keeps growing. Inductions usually end up in c-sections. Etc etc.

So, I'll have to follow a strict diet - which for all intents and purposes isn't that different from the way Matt and I normally eat anyway; I'll just have to be even more fussy. I may need to be induced around 39 weeks, which I don't want. I'll have ultrasounds every two weeks to monitor the baby's growth, and if it's estimated to be bigger than 8lbs 5oz, then we'll have to schedule a c-section. I don't want that. But sometimes you don't get a choice. And I'm not so all about the way *I* want things to go that I have a whole lot of room for pitching a fit. I just know the risks and benefits of all the options, and I'll start praying NOW that at the very least I'll go into labor naturally before said scheduled induction or c-section, so the baby at least has the benefit of those good labor hormones that tell it, "Get ready for the big world now!!"

It's humbling, but I'm choosing not to make a big deal about it. I want to do whatever I can to make sure we're both healthy (especially Little Bird). And hey, more ultrasounds means more pictures, right? :) I have no choice but to just roll with it. I'd far rather have gestational diabetes than pregnancy-induced hypertension or pre-eclampsia.

So if you have any words of encouragement or great food suggestions if you've been a gestational diabetic before, send them my way!!!!

27 weeks!

2010-08-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

Hellooooooo third trimester!!!!! I can't believe it's here already!! I know I haven't posted a picture in a while, but I'll do it soon. I'm feeling less "cute" and more "fat" and it doesn't make me very inclined to whip out the camera, but I know I'll regret it if I don't. Even in the past couple of weeks I've grown a lot, but it's still all baby, and I'm so grateful to have had no swelling anywhere so far, no back pain, no hip pain, only one day of round ligament pain...all those things that can make you so uncomfortable. I know that that can still come on with a vengeance, but still - I know plenty of people who dealt with any or all of those things from very early on.

Baby is moving even more vigorously now, which is way too much fun. I'll feel a head grinding into my left hip, and then a series of popping kicks up near my right ribs. He or she stays fairly quiet thru the night and then starts to rock & roll around 4 or 5 - and that's fine with me if we maintain that kind of schedule. If I have a baby who will settle down nicely but be an early morning baby, that would be great. But I know better than to think too wishfully...!!!

I remember thinking this past spring that when the leaves change color and start to fall, then it'll be "almost time." Well, I'm seeing the first of the leaves already start to change...granted, it's definitely far from being "almost time" but you know what I mean...life will be changing sooner rather than later now! Woah!

I'm still humbled at the number of people who faithfully are praying for us. Praying for us!!! I mean, it's so simple, but so profound that this baby is so loved and lifted up on a regular basis before the throne of Heaven. And they're not giving me churchy lip-service - they really are praying for this child. That just blows me away.

Well, this wasn't the most newsy update, but I wanted to update nonetheless. Not much else going on in the Gouveia household, and sometimes that's a really nice thing!!!

So stay tuned for that picture!!!

26 weeks...

2010-07-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

*sorry, this post is emotional, reflective, and detailed, but I've been needing to write it for about five years, so I understand if you don't want to read the whole thing!*

I turned 26 weeks yesterday! By the end of next week I'll move out of my second trimester and into the third!!!! Yikes!

26 weekers are amazing little people. I don't want to have one, but I do admire them. They're feisty and are way more aware of what's going on around them than anyone will ever credit them. They hear, cry, respond to pain, wrap their whisper-thin fingers around their ventilator tubes and try to yank them out...they're crafty little boogers. They have spunk and personality. But they're still oh so fragile. Any amount of stress - even a brief crying episode - can have devastating effects on the fragile blood vessels in their brain, and crossing the line from "turning out okay" to living with a lifetime of challenges can happen as quickly as you can say boo.

One of my favorite people on the planet was a 26 weeker. She's been on my mind a lot today, and I don't know why, except that I maybe am just breathing that subconscious sigh of relief with every day that passes by...and now I have an image in my mind of a 26-weeker who turned out healthy and thriving and well.

But she's not the one who turned out healthy, thriving, and well, unfortunately. Her twin sister did. I'll call them Maddie and Sonja.

Maddie and Sonja were born at an outlying hospital. The hospital was equipped to stabilize the twins but, without the backup of a Level III NICU right there, could only do so much before the transport team arrived. They did what they could, and what they did was appropriate. The girls had breathing tubes inserted in their airways and were being ventilated with a hand-operated mechanism.

What no one knew was that Maddie, while looking like your average 26-weeker on the outside, was far from one on the inside. She had a defect where she had a tiny connection between her trachea (airway that leads to the lungs) and her esophagus. Essentially, while she was being ventilated, not only were the air and pressure entering her lungs, but also her stomach.

Basically, her stomach popped like a balloon.

The course for her was set. She lived a life like no other person I can imagine or describe. I, like many other nurses, was too intimidated by her problems to take care of her. I took on her sister Sonja as a primary nurse, looking on at Maddie's bedside with a shudder. She had a tube coming out of her stomach to a water bottle to provide enough back-pressure to provide the ability to ventilate her extremely immature lungs. She was on a high-frequency ventilator for longer than I can remember (for some perspective, we as adults breathe 10-20 times a minute...babies breathe between 20-60 times a minute...a hi-fi vent will deliver between 400-900 breaths a minute, in rapid succession, to minimize pressure trauma to the lungs...it kind of sounds like being ventilated by a lawn mower).

Her story is long and convoluted. Maddie lived far longer than she had any business living, with the issues that she had. She survived heart surgery to repair a common, well, not "defect," but common "thingy" that preemies have. She survived surgery to have a feeding tube placed below her stomach into her intestine...and then survived that feeding tube puncturing her intestine and essentially being "fed" into her abdominal cavity, the subsequent infection, and then the surgery to repair that. She had infection after infection after infection, feeding difficulty after feeding difficulty. She could never be fed from a bottle because the connection between her windpipe and her esophagus still needed to be repaired.

Maddie was an absolute Christmas tree, with the less-than-lovely ornamentation of a NICU patient: a long-term IV line in her scalp where she received IV nutrition 24 hours a day, the wound where she still had a tube coming out of her stomach, a feeding tube in another part of her abdomen, extra IV lines in her hands, arms, or feet for antibiotics or whatever else we needed to give...she was beyond fat from months in the NICU, being fed mega-doses of calories but never having much opportunity to develop the muscle tone that other babies are able to develop. The IV nutrition that was keeping her alive was also wrecking her liver, leaving her jaundiced.

Essentially, Maddie was fat, yellow, had a bad haircut (we shave a lot of hair from those babies' heads to have access to their veins), weird stuff inserted in weird places on her body, and she had a bad attitude.

And I LOVED that baby.

Maddie had a wonderful family, but they had a handful of other kids (in addition to Sonja, who eventually went home after a few months) and couldn't be with her as much as they would have loved. So most nights I had Maddie all to myself. We had a great relationship. By the time I picked her up as a primary - after Sonja went home - she was a few months old, breathing on her own, and in an "open crib" (as opposed to those plastic boxes - isolettes - that the littler preemies are in). When I came on for report, she'd hear my voice and twist her chunky little body around so she could see me. We had our little routine, which included what I called the nightly eruption of "Mt. St. Maddie" because her foul temper would take over the entire room as I assessed her, cleaned her, and changed her dressings. Then I would set her in her little baby papasan, set it on vibrate, and sit on the floor next to her while I charted so she could keep looking at me.

Every morning at 2am we had the chance to snuggle. You don't get many chances to snuggle NICU babies. They're not exactly in much of a position to be interacted with like normal babies. Snuggling Maddie was...exciting...with her tricky array of accouterments. I'd have to drape her scalp line over my shoulder, her other IV over my arm, and clutch her back-pressure bottle from her stomach between my legs as I sat in the rocking chair. But then we'd rock, and I'd play with her hair and tell her how beautiful Miss Jenny thinks she is, even if she was fat, yellow, and grumpy.

Maddie wouldn't make eye contact with me. Or with much of anyone. Many NICU babies won't. But one night, as I sat with her, she fixed straight on my eyes and wouldn't look away. Another nurse grabbed the unit's camera, set up a sheet behind us, and we had a "photo montage" so we could capture the moment...this yellow little basketball staring at me with huge brown eyes.

Maddie "barked" when she wanted attention. I'd be charting at another bedside across the room, and she'd peer at me through the jail-bar-like slats of her crib and yap - a sharp, raspy "MEH!" to get my attention. So now I had a fat, yellow, and bossy baby on my hands.

Ah, but things started happening, things that any NICU nurse can predict for a life like the one Maddie lived. Her story becomes even more long and convoluted and I'll leave it at that. She needed surgery to repair her defects, but the procedure was life-threatening for her. She got sick from the IV nutrition she was receiving. Her wound in her stomach would never heal, and the doctors were tired of me chasing them down every shift asking what more I could do...because, there was very little anyone could do. She was a medical and surgical atrocity, basically. Her dear parents knew what was ahead. At 4am one morning, her mom asked me to tell her as honestly as possible what I thought would happen, and I told her...and she quietly conceded, "That's what I was thinking, too."

During one of the worst nights of my life, I spent roughly ten hours with about six other doctors and nurses trying every last effort to keep this baby alive. I was exhausted and apologizing profusely in my spirit for making her endure things that not one of us would ever want to endure, given the choice.

Maddie had her surgery as a do-or-die effort to close off the airway-esophagus connection once and for all. And that's when they found the truth: she had hundreds - HUNDREDS - of these connections, interlacing two parts of her body that snuggle like buddies next to each other in all of us but were never, ever meant to communicate in such a way. She was sent back to the NICU. Shortly thereafter, she put her foot down and said no more, and now she's whole in heaven, God be praised.

Maddie's story rocked me. We all do our best to maintain a professional distance, but every once in a while - maybe once in a career, even - one patient's heart weaves into our own. I have so much respect for Maddie. I wish I could have treated her with even more dignity, but we had to do what we had to do...babies don't exactly come with living wills for what they do or don't want to have done in the event of a crisis - and many of those babies are one crisis after another. Their parents and families dance the tenuous shuffle between grief and horror and hope, sometimes from one minute to the next, and we as nurses have to remain objective and truthful and supportive of their decisions.

So all that to say, as I feel this little person moving around inside of me, I know what he or she looks like, I know what he or she is capable of, and I know what he or she would endure to have a chance at life. And that is awesome, in ever literal sense of the word. These little people are amazing and deserve so much respect. God has made them more fearfully and wonderfully than we can ever imagine.

So "Maddie," I still love you, and Miss Jenny thinks you're beautiful, and I can't wait to hold you again someday on the other side of heaven.

And Little Bird, you stay put, alright? Good things await you on this side of heaven!

Glory baby...

2010-07-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

My first due date is approaching. My Glory Baby was due this Saturday.

Before I got pregnant with Little Bird, every Saturday I experienced a little bit of grief, thinking of how I would have been one week farther. After I got pregnant again, I started to lose track, but always had a general idea of how far I would be. Then it snuck up on me: a few weeks ago I was at a c-section for a baby who was early-ish, and when I was perusing the mom's prenatal for some information I needed, my eyes shot to her due date: July 20th. And suddenly I was like, "Oh my word. I would be term right now." And it felt kind of sad and weird.

And then...there's this lady who walks by my house every day. She has a two-year-old boy who was a 34-weeker that I took care of in the Special Care Nursery. She and her husband were THE most darling couple, and we still chitty-chat if we see each other.

Well, she had another baby this past weekend. I was working in the Special Care Nursery (known not-very-affectionately as "The Cave" because, quite often, people forget that you're there because it's separate from pretty much everything else), and the nurse in the Well-Baby nursery had to run to the bathroom or something, so she carted in this lone little baby from the nursery for me to watch while she was gone. So in comes this day-old, DARLING little baby girl...I peered at the name tag and it was this lady's baby. She was due on the 26th. It kind of hit me: this is exactly what my baby would be like right now (well, not exactly, but you know what I mean).

There was no one else in the Special Care Nursery with me (well, no one over four pounds, that is). I picked up this baby girl and she got kind of ticked. But I snuggled her and talked to her and she settled down and fell asleep. And I sank into a recliner at one of my bitty's bedsides and held her and just sobbed. I can't explain why, and I probably don't need to. I needed to hold that baby and grieve.

I purposefully took vacation time starting this Saturday because I intentionally want to make the weekend of the 24th full of good memories to celebrate the life that would have been.

Meanwhile, I do have to say I have nothing but praise to God for how good He's been to us. Granted, He gave us another child right away, one who thrives and kicks and tumbles and is growing (or at least making ME grow) at an alarming rate! But we don't just praise Him for what He gives us; we praise Him because He is sovereign and He gives AND he takes away, and while the "taking away" part stinks, it can be an act of mercy...and clearly was what was best for that baby. I love that baby and I miss it; Little Bird is not a replacement but is a tremendous grace.

...but baby let sweet Jesus hold you
Till Mom and Dad can hold you
You'll just have heaven before we do
You'll just have heaven before we do

The Nana Chair

2010-07-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here is our first major gift for Little Bird: a glider from Nana Sarah and Gramma Sue!! We love that it doesn't take up too much space, the pattern at first was not what caught my eye, but the more we looked at it the more we were like, "Hey, it matches our living room colors perfectly!" and promptly scooped it up.

Thank you Mom and California Mommy!

I can't help it...

2010-07-13T16:52:00.000-07:00

When I saw a laboring woman walking in the hallway with her fabu hospital gown, pushing an IV pole, with a BLUE TOOTH in her ear, I about fell off my chair. That is just too funny.

Overwhelmed

2010-07-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

I think part of the reason that I haven't written many posts lately is that I'm overwhelmed. And not in the way that you would think. I'm sure one would expect me to be overwhelmed at the thought of having a baby, the ups and downs, the unexpected, the oh-my-goodness-I-have-no-clue-what-I'm-doing-ness...but that's not really the case. It's more that I'm overwhelmed at all the thoughts I have running through my mind, things Matt and I would like to see our home and life look like as our family grows etc - and I fear that if I flesh through those thoughts out loud (so-to-speak), The Opinions will come resounding back.

You know what I mean. The Opinions. Lord knows I have plenty of them! But so does everyone else. And in few other arenas are opinions more staunch than in the area of having and raising children. I know I'll have mine. So I'm throwing myself in the pot with the rest of humanity, mind you.

As an aside, a fun observation in the sociology of delivering/handling babies is one of the, shall we say, "perks" of my job. But that's a totally separate topic, and one about which I hope to graciously write someday. Graciously being the operative word! hahaha!

Anyway, I remember when Matt and I were newly engaged, and Valentine's Day was shortly thereafter. He sent me a beautiful bouquet of roses at work...and while there were many "awwww's" and "how sweet's," I was taken aback at how many MORE were like, "Yeah, don't get used to this, because it'll stop once you're married" followed by an exchange of knowing looks. Huh. How encouraging.

It's kind of the same way now: "Yeah, well wait until you have kids....THEN ________."

I totally understand - as much as I can cognitively understand - that things will change. Radically. But that's what we WANT. We're not having a baby to gratify ourselves. We totally get - again, as much as we're able to "get it" without being in that boat yet - that God will use this child to challenge every capacity that we have. But what a glorious thing! We'll dive headlong into this, knowing full well that this is one large part in His plan for our sanctification. He's giving us this kid to raise in the fear and admonition of Himself, and I pray that we'll be faithful in diligently sowing the knowledge of the Lord into his or her heart. There will be major - MAJOR - challenges along the way, ones that we expect and others we don't. But every day of this child's life is written in His book, and his or her path is joining ours, and we'll take each day as it comes and rely completely and utterly on His grace.

But on a much more, um, basic level....holy cow, there are so many little thingies to think about and decide upon, and everyone wants to know what you think or plan to do, and in many cases, as soon as you answer, you get the "Oh, well, that's what YOU think, BUT..." response.

*sigh*

So, here I join the ranks of women who for centuries have felt like bumbling fools in motherhood, and I just am going to smile and decide that that's simply the way it's going to be! I won't be able to please or impress everyone (and perhaps not anyone, oh my!), and I'll have to stuff my pride every day and resolve to remember that not every move I make will wreck my child's life!

Sooooo......

No, as you well know, we didn't find out the baby's gender. Everyone has a major opinion on that, but it's a minor and personal and inconsequential thing, so I say go for whatever you think is more fun! Personally, the most fun deliveries I attend are the ones where it's a surprise. And knowing what "it" is wouldn't really change the way I would decorate or the stuff I would buy, because what if I buy very gender-specific stuff, and then next time we have the opposite? Now I have all this pink or blue stuff, and I'm having an un-pink or un-blue person, and either I will subject them to a gender-crisis at an early age, or have to buy all new stuff. No way, man. And I like a little suspense, don't you? ;)

No, I prefer not to be induced or have a c-section, but if that's what happens, it's what happens. I admire and respect people who have lengthy birth plans and know exactly how they want each stage to be as they labor and deliver, but that's simply not me. And I know full well that the longer your birth plan, the more likely it is that it'll be trumped. I'm just sayin', that's what usually happens. It's not about what I want, it's about getting this person out safely, and if that has to happen through my nose, then that's that. I would prefer to wait to go into labor naturally (of course), because babies who are exposed to that cascade of labor hormones that naturally occur have better outcomes. Did you know, for instance - I have to be a nurse here! It's too fun! - that it's NOT the "squeezing" of the birth canal that clears the fluid out of the baby's lungs? No! It's the hormone cascade that occurs during labor that signals to the baby's body to start reabsorbing the fluid while it's on its way out. And that is one of the many reasons why so many babies who are born by elective c-section tend to have more complications. One day they're in their tub, and next thing you know they're being yanked out with no warning. Way unfair, man. Granted, if we have a breech baby or something, that's the way it is.

On the flipside, if this kid is still dangling from my rib cage and my body is refusing to start labor, I won't go too far beyond my due date. There comes a point where there can be even more complications if the baby's in for too long, and I don't want to mess around with that either.

Epidural or not? Epidurals come with their own set of risks. Laboring without one comes with its own set of risks. I like to think I'm hear-me-roar, but I'm quite certain I'm not. It will be a game-time decision.

Breast or bottle? Of course I would like to breastfeed.

But I've stood in many, many, many, manymanymanymanymany rooms next to moms whose babies would. not. breastfeed. Most people think that breastfeeding is so natural, that as soon as the baby is born, violins strike up in the background and voila!!!!-breastfeeding occurs. I'm here to say, it doesn't. If you were one of the very, VERY fortunate moms for whom this was the case, you are very, VERY fortunate indeed. But I think I've said this before:

I would rather stand dripping wet in a snowstorm chewing on broken glass while a bear gnaws on my face.....than fiddle and fiddle and fiddle with a baby who will. not. breastfeed.

This is a very flammable subject, mind you. Breast IS best. No denying that. BUT - and this is a big BUT - it simply does not work every time. It just doesn't. Everyone has different anatomy, every baby has a different shaped mouth, and sometimes, it just doesn't happen the way you really want it to and it totally stinks.

So, knowing that, if it doesn't happen the way I want, I'll formula feed and admonish myself against feeling guilty, unloving, and inadequate, as so many moms do feel when breastfeeding doesn't take off. I'm not saying that I'm the poster child for all things gone right, but I was formula fed (probably from a leaded glass bottle too!!) and I have no allergies, am bonded with my mom, rode a bike, learned to read, graduated from college with honors, and am a quite healthy adult. So it's not the end of the world!

I will work two days a week. I have awesome health insurance and we'll keep me and our kids on it. I'd love to be a stay-at-home mom, yet I know I'll look forward to the creative and intellectual and social outlet that work will be. Maybe someday we'll decide together that being a stay-at-home mom will work out best for us. Today is not that day. We're a team and together we'll do what we both need to do to keep our game going. I'm sure I'll get some flak for being a working mom (you'd be shocked at the daggers that can be lobbed at working moms, unless you've seen them firsthand), but it's a decision we're owning.

We're using cloth diapers. As exclusively as humanly possible. I know what kind I want to use, and everyone who uses cloth swears by the kind they use and it's overwhelming to get every (very kindly and well-intended) opinion. So I'm settling on what I want, and I'm owning that decision! :)

Our kids will go to public schools. At one point I just knew I was going to homeschool, and then we decided we'd really like to send our kids to Christian schools, and then we felt that as part of our vision and what we feel our calling is as we raise our family, public schools it is. I admire parents who home-school and am beyond impressed with how their children turn out - academically AND socially. Christian schools are amazing and I love the mission and purpose of a Christian education. Public schools are an arena where a family can have vast influence, and that is where we'd like to pour our energy. We might change our minds, or another opportunity will arise. But as of right now, that's our intention. And we're owning it.

My registries are kind of slim because, well, there are a lot of things that either I can't fit into my house or I know I most likely won't need. I'd rather find out I need something down the road and have to go out and buy it, than have a house filled with stuff I think I need but really don't. I feel kind of silly and slightly embarrassed as my two dinky pages print out on my Target registry...and I felt very silly and quite embarrassed when I registered at Babies R Us, and after two hours handed back my scanner and the lady looked at it, raised her eyebrows, and said, "Well, you can come back a few more times and add more stuff to it." A FEW more times? I don't have time to drive to the other side of Grand Rapids and troll the aisles for more stuff, nor do I have space in my house for more stuff!!!! I already flunked registering! *sigh*

So these are the things that overwhelm me. It kind of comes down to a fear of man, really. What if I deliver and get an epidural, will people think I'm, like, less of a woman? What if breastfeeding doesn't work out - I have friends for whom it didn't, and they get raised eyebrows and underhanded remarks as they pull out a bottle of formula...will people do that to me, too? Will people think that because I'm returning to work that we must not trust in the Lord enough to provide for all of our needs? And......argh.

I can't worry about what other people will think. I just can't! We're going to raise our children in the fear and wisdom of the Lord. That's the best I know to do. The other stuff is just....stuff. And I will own that until my dying day.

Oh. My.

2010-07-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

A week or two ago, Matt came home and exclaimed, "Whoa. You really look pregnant now."

I took it as a compliment. I know that's what he intended it to be.

But yeah, I looked in the mirror and was like, You have GOT to be kidding me. Last Saturday (fourth of July weekend) was my first fairly uncomfortable day, and thankfully my friend Mary warned me about this "round ligament pain" that I woke up experiencing on Saturday morning, and it lasted through much of the weekend. I just felt like I was...getting bigger. No other way to explain it. And as you can see...yep, I'm growing all right!

So yah, here I am at 23.5 weeks (eeks!!! I've taken care of 23 weekers! I know what they look like and what they do and they can be spunky little critters!) and I feel quite good, thank the Lord! I've gotten some decorations for the room, started my registries (still need to tweak them though) at Target, Babies R Us, and Ecobuns.com, and am just trying to be diligent in methodically getting stuff ready so I don't have one big freak-attack in the last month.

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in quite some time. It seems lately like on my days off, so many things come up and I'm scrambling to get them done before the sun already goes down again, and I'm on my way back to work the next day. I'm trying to be super-fruit-picker-and-freezer, so as fruit comes in season I'm heading to the u-pick farms and stocking up. I'm trying to clean and organize stuff and foresee the little things that I'll need to buy or complete as the weeks quickly tick by. And I'm trying to be available to my precious friends and church, for when those last-minute needs come up...my days are numbered where I can just drop everything and help babysit, clean a house, or fill in for some other random need! So I'm not trying to be a blogging delinquent!! I promise I will blog soon with more of what's going on with us lately, etc.

Fear not!

2010-06-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't forgotten my sweet blog!!! This week is kicking my butt and it may not stop until well after it's over. I will leave you with one thought:

I normally kill plants. But I really want to try growing vegetables. I planted a small raised garden and threw in a tomato and a green bean plant.

The tomato plant is about to take over the south side of Holland. The bean plant isn't far behind. My basil plant that I put in there is close on their heels, too. Yikes.

I even had my first "harvest" of green beans. I am quite pleased.

And that is my little bright spot for the day. Ta-ta for now!!

Belly shot...and Father's Day

2010-06-22T05:25:00.001-07:00

I apologize for my 20.5 week tummy shot...I was preparing for a Saturday full of yard work, and simply was NOT getting my pretty on that morning. So it's a not-great picture, in addition to the fact that I don't think I look a whole lot different from 16 weeks!!! I AM growing OUT, but it seems like I'm growing more UPward (because I have a really looooong torso, you see...ha. ha. ha). But I know Little Bird is getting bigger - in fact, he/she was measuring a week AHEAD at the ultrasound last week! (Unfortunately - fortunately? - I KNOW without a doubt that my dates are spot-on, so he/she had just had a growth spurt and will hopefully not continue on a "big" trajectory!)

I feel a lot of movement most days, which is fun. But I hear everyone describe this early movement as "butterfly wings." Um, this is no *butterfly* that I'm carrying. That's not even sort of what comes to mind when I feel it. This child is way more aggressive - the other night, for example I was lying on my tummy before I went to sleep (just to get a break from left side/right side/left side/right side). Apparently this was quite displeasing, because as I lay peacefully in the dark, I received such a wollop of a kick right in the middle that I involuntarily whisper-yelled "OH MY WORD!" and immediately flipped over to appease this little banana-sized person.

We had a good time in Manistee for Father's Day. It is SOOOO pretty up there, and why did I not appreciate that when I was growing up there??? One of my favorite things to do is walk to the beach at Magoon Creek, a nicely secluded yet very accessible beach where doggies are actually allowed!!

We spent a little time at the beach, grilled at Mom and Dad's, and went downtown to the sundae bar. A very good day, indeed. :)

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

Heading up to the 'stee today to see my mom and dad and celebrate Father's Day. I'm so fortunate to have a dad who loves me and spent time with me while I was growing up. My dad has a ton of hobbies, so our dad-daughter activities were always unique. :) He had an old model train, and constructed a huge "landscape" with mountains and rivers and a town with screen and paper mache', and we painted it and filled it in with trees. He had an old photo developing shop, so we'd take black-and-white pictures and develop them ourselves in the basement. When I was learning about clouds and weather in fourth grade, we went out cloud-hunting one afternoon, took awesome pictures, and then developed them. When I wanted to learn about stars, he took me in the back yard with a telescope at night. When I wanted to learn about tornadoes, he bought me books about tornadoes. He bought me a microscope and slides to make my own specimens, chemistry sets, replicas of the human body that we could construct together...I mean, is it any wonder I love science and the human body now????

He did try to teach me Morse code so we could be "ham buddies" but...that's where my interest waned. ;)

Dad taught my Sunday school classes when I was in Junior High and High School. Some of my friends still remember the business cards he handed out with quarters taped to them...he called them "sweaty palms cards." If any of us were to find ourselves in an...um...."situation"....anyone was welcome to call Dad and he'd be available to...um...."talk them down." hahahahahaha!!! (No one ever did call him, BTW.) What made him REALLY popular was during our High School Sunday school classes he took us out for breakfast, instead of staying at the church in a boring classroom. It prompted more free conversation and drew people out of the woodwork who wouldn't normally even come to church.

So Happy Father's Day, Dad!!!! Thanks for being an awesome dad who was always there for me, who delighted in embarrassing me when I worked at Kmart (going down every checkout lane shaking hands with each checker, "Hi, I'm Jenny Mark's dad!"), and grinning cheesily from the top row at all of my band concerts.

I love you Dad!!

20 weeks!!

2010-06-16T12:51:00.001-07:00

I had my 20-week ultrasound today!!! And it was awesome! As you may well know, I was a wee bit nervous. As my friend said on Sunday, she prays, "Lord, please give Jenny temporary amnesia. She knows. Too. Much." I did have my little mental checklist and I ticked off each thing (as far as I could tell) with each body part. There does appear to be a brain, a four-chamber heart, the intestines are tucked inside the body, the kidneys and bladder work (which, in turn, makes sure the lungs form, a very fascinating little fetal development lesson if you're ever interested), the cord has two arteries and a vein, and there are four limbs.

I now have my first ream of pictures, and I wouldn't post them all, except I know that California Mommy would love to see them all (and maybe a few other people are that intensely interested as well in every single body part). The great thing is, my mom was able to come in and see it too...she had spent the night and we didn't think she'd be able to come to the ultrasound (only one person allowed), but the tech let her come in for a peek after she had done the entire "anatomy scan." And remember, I don't have a scanner, so I have to take a picture of each picture and download it that way, so they're a little ghetto.

Here's a nice little profile shot...

And then it started to turn and show us a back...

Some little legs that I hope are going to be long and luxurious like Daddy's (the legs are to the left, if you can't tell, with the feet all the way over to the left - and hey! No clubbed feet!)...

A face shot with a hello wave! Looks a little freaky, I know...

This is a gorgeous picture of the spine (Little Bird is curving like a cat with the head to the left)...
Sucking on a thumb???....

A little foot!....

And I'm mad at Blogger for rotating this picture without my permission and not letting me rotate it back...but it's the best profile shot...Baby's back is to us and he/she is looking up over the shoulder...so you'll have to cock your head to the right...

Speaking of *he* or *she*....we told the tech that we didn't want to find out the sex, so she did her best to avoid "that" area. There WAS one point, though, when suddenly the baby moved, and from what I could tell, we were looking at it from the feet up. And for about a second and a half I thought, "Oh my word. I think I know what I'm looking at." I didn't say anything until we got back in the car, and I said, "Ummmm....I'm no expert, but I think we're having a _______." And Matt said, "Yeah, there was a point where I saw ______ and thought the same thing."

See, you're either looking for hamburger buns or a hot dog. Again, we certainly don't have a trained eye whatsoever, so we may be verrrrry wrong. But did we see hamburger buns or a hot dog????? I'm not telling!!!!! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaa!!!!!

A very Amish day

2010-06-07T16:09:00.001-07:00

I felt very Amish today. Ish. My friend Mary and I went to a local farm and picked gobs of strawberries...which are totally gorgeous this year! Very red, very juicy, very sweet. I picked 15lbs and paid $20, totally awesome. Then we went to the farm's little stand and I bought asparagus, peas, and honey. And THEN we stopped by a little farm house that was selling eggs and I bought a dozen. I loved that it was a little mini-fridge perched on the porch with an old cash box next to it, admonishing me to "be honest!" and pay my $2. Which I did, cross my heart.

I even wore a straw hat (Mom, I've been wearing that hat a lot that you gave me).

Now if I were really Amish, I would have picked strawberries from my own garden, harvested my own peas and asparagus, collected the eggs from my own chicken (and perhaps even hacked the neck of my own chicken and it would be boiling on my stove right now). And would have done it before 4:30am. But I can pretend, right??

Now, I have a super-awesome smoothie recipe that is bound to change your life. Or at least sweeten your morning. It's very easy, very fast, and packs a few servings of fruit at once. You can use whatever you want, but here's my fave:

Frozen blueberries (however much you want)
Frozen strawberries (man, I can't wait to use my yummy ones)
Frozen mango or peaches
Some OJ
Some honey (make it local honey!! Especially if you have seasonal allergies, it'll help)
2T ground flax seed (I don't eat fish so this is how I get my good omegas in)

First, blend, then puree. Delicious. Just watch out...those little blueberry skins are teeth-clingers. Have a mirror at the ready.

If you're a yogurt-in-the-smoothie person, have at it...but once I tried Jamba Juice's "all-fruit" smoothies, I was way hooked.

Pregnancy is going quite well...I'm 19 weeks on Wednesday, and "the big" ultrasound is NEXT Wednesday, when I'm 20 weeks. Already halfway there!!! I'm somewhat nervous about this ultrasound, I'm sure everyone is, just wanting to know that all the right pieces are in the right places. A lot of people think that the 20-week ultrasound is just to find out the sex of the baby, but it's really called an "anatomy scan" because, well, they want to know the anatomy is correct. I'm praying for a brain, lungs, functioning kidneys, a four-chamber heart with the vessels in the right spot, intestines that are tucked inside the body, a fused palate and lip, an appropriate amount of amniotic fluid...I know, pretty high standards.

So please pray that we have a great ultrasound (deep down I have peace about it, I really do), and please pray also for me as I head into the 20's. I don't want to get into too much dramatic detail, so I'll quote Matt's very correct summary: "So this is when the NICU nurse needs a sedative." Yep. My prayer is for a pregnancy that continues as smoothly as it has so far...until at least 38 weeks.

I've felt quite a bit of movement (I have since about 17 weeks, which I know is unusual for a first-time mom), and this baby is definitely a mover and shaker! I use the doppler every time I'm at work and I spend more time chasing the baby around than I do listening to the heartbeat. I hear a LOT of kicking, swooshing, and turning. It's quite amazing. I poke at my tummy and it hops to the other side. In fact, as I write this, I'm feeling a lot of tap-dancing! It won't be long before those little feet are tearing all over the house!

Anyway, that's the update, and next week I'll post a 20-week tummy picture...and hopefully pictures of a very healthy Little Bird!

Remembering

2010-06-04T14:56:00.001-07:00

Before I packed all my earthlies and headed for parts unknown, I was another single gal living in Grand Rapids. And let me tell you...

Being single in West Michigan is NOT easy.

Being single in general can be a tough and lonely season...and for some a very tough and long season.

But here, there is a different flavor, if you will. Let me try to explain. And in doing so, I don't want to sound like I was some angry single lady minus the cat. And I know full well that one can feel isolated and lonely no matter WHAT stage of life they're in, no matter WHERE they are.

This is a part of the country that is very, very family-oriented and conservative. I really appreciate that, I do. But I'm not gonna lie: it does lend itself to making someone who doesn't fit the married-straight-out-of-college mold feel like a social pariah. You kind of are made to feel like less of a grown-up. Most activities and events are geared towards families or marriage "encounters." It's just...awkward.

I remember even throwing my hands in the air one time over the name of a local grocery chain: "Family Fare." I wanted to open my own chain called "Single People Fare." You know, with smaller loaves of bread that don't go moldy because only one person is eating them. Fewer aisles full of family size!!!! boxes and more single-people size!!!! packages that won't go stale. You get my drift. A local Christian radio station touted that it was "the number-one preset in mini-vans across West Michigan!" I was like, SERIOUSLY? I was 25 and I got so many doleful looks from the ladies at work, like, "Oh, your life must be just awful, being alone." Argh.

Anyway, probably the most difficult place to be was church, of all things. When I worked nights I'll admit it was really hard to get plugged into a church. That's a different story, but I'll just suffice to say that working nights just made me a physical and mental mess. But when I DID go, I was always struck that, here I was in this big church nearly packed to the gills with people. And as I looked around, I noticed that I was the only one with a huge gap on either side of me...I know my perception was probably incorrect, but it almost felt like I had this huge disease (singleness!!!!) that no one wanted to brush up against. People are awkward when you're a onesie instead of a twosie. How do you relate to a half instead of a whole? At least that's sure how it seemed.

Church is a place where everyone should be able to breathe a sigh of relief and think, "Ahhhhh...here it doesn't matter if I'm married/single/rich/poor/ugly/gorgeous/etc." Unfortunately, on this side of heaven that may never be fully the case. Nonetheless, even when I was just out of college I remember being struck at the compartmentalizing our society likes to do...and how churches follow suit. We need to categorize people and perch them on the corresponding peg. Age groups, life groups, marital status, kid vs. kid-less status...line them up in their neat rows because that's how people get along.

I can see the real benefit of categorizing, I really do. But I also see how it hurts and alienates. Not intentionally, but it does. I mean, here's an example: (BTW, this has not hurt or alienated us, it just caused some uhhhhh-ness at first) There are two Sunday School categories at our church that Matt and I could fall into: young marrieds, or married with kids. We fall more in the "young marrieds" category simply because we are still fairly newly-married (and had been married less than a year when we started going). But age-wise, we fell more in the married-with-kids category (and heck, for Matt, he could even go into the next group up). Many of the young marrieds are remarkably younger than we are. But if we go into the married-with-kids class, where there are more people our age, they're in a radically different stage of life than we've been. So no matter where you go, there's a degree of awkward.

What annoyed me with some churches I attended was they would put all of the singles in one pot: post-high school and up. So you'd have this mish-mash of 19-year-olds up to 30-somethings who may be divorced. But that was your only choice, because you certainly couldn't join another group, that would be the wrong category!!!! And that would throw it all off!!

Anyway, I feel like I'm straying off of what I want my point to be, which is this: we need to be better at taking care of all of the "categories" of people at church (and in life in general). I need to be better about it, that's for sure. People feel alienated and lonely because they aren't treated like they fit. There are couples who are secretly struggling with infertility and are being told to "relax" and "trust in the Lord." There are people who feel snubbed because their kids go to public schools rather than being homeschooled or put in the Christian school. There are older newly marrieds who need to be mentored by an "older" married couple who may very well be their same age. And there are single people who need to be pulled into families and loved on, asked how their life is going, encouraged, mentored, and appreciated for their gifts.

I wish, when I was single and probably had more opportunity than I realized, that I would have had the gumption to start to get to know a variety of people, and not just see myself as "single and therefore a freak." My answer was to bail, honestly, and thankfully the Lord still directed my steps in that. When I got to California, though, the bulk of the people I met were married and I was like, "Oh my word, is this some cosmic JOKE?" but it was thanks to some wonderful couples/families who took me under their wing right away, included me in their date nights (I know, who does that?! Honestly, I would never expect that), had me over for dinner, invited me to Bible studies and movie nights...and that was all within two weeks of being there. Why didn't that happen in three years of being here? But now that memory reminds me of the extreme importance of dropping the category and loving on people. Married, single, weird, smelly, or otherwise.

I'll take the horrid mumu, please

2010-06-01T13:01:00.001-07:00

I was on a rampage today and was terribly displeased.

I'm hot. As in, I feel like my body is going to burst into flame when it's >75 degrees out. The person residing in me is a mere 5 ounces, but they're making me into a human inferno.

And so, simply enough, I set out to find a pair of shorts today.

When I first got pregnant, I thought, "Oh FUN!!! Shopping for maternity clothes!!" Finally your tummy is CUTE instead of shameful, people want to touch it instead of inviting you to the gym, and you want to wear clothes that show it off instead of tastefully hide it.

I received piles - and I mean piles - of hand-me-downs from people at work who recently finished having babies. And I got some great stuff - but most of it is for cooler weather. Which is great, given that I'll be in the enormous throes of pregnancy when the weather is cooler. I dirted my regular jeans weeks ago when I discovered that awesome elastic thing that stretches to your chin and practically over your head and back again. So I've really enjoyed wearing my new-to-me duds. My Title 9 sporty knit dresses have managed to squeak me by as well and will continue to do so in the next few weeks.

I've got jeans, capris, dresses, skirts...but I wanted good old shorts.

This Bella Band thingy does not blow my hair back at all. It's this large stretchy band that you can wear over your regular pants, leaving your pants unbuttoned and the band will hold everything in. But it makes me look exactly like I have a zipper and buttons being corralled under a large band under a shirt (in addition to my tummy), which is NOT a cute look. And when it's hot out, the last thing I want is this huge piece of synthetic-stretchy-something snug against my body underneath my clothing. So that option is a last resort, if that.

So I went out looking for some shorts today. I was horrified. I went to a couple of consignment shops that sell all baby and maternity stuff, but totally struck out. I'm sure the shorts flew off the racks when the weather heated up, and I was a late arrival. So that was out. Then I went to Younker's to check out their "new maternity section" and was equally shocked and flummoxed at the horrid selection of tent-like tops, bizarre patterns, and ranks of pants and jeans. I was like, you have GOT to be kidding me. Just because my midsection is a bit bigger does NOT mean that my interest is suddenly piqued by awful prints on huge, unbecoming shirts. I actually blurted out loud, "Are you KIDDING me?!" in the middle of the store (but I was at the West Shore Mall, so it's not like anyone was there to hear me anyway). It was insulting. Why on earth would I wear anything like that, pregnant or not?

Then I went to JC Penney. Asked the first person I saw where the maternity department is. "Sorry, we don't have a maternity department." I nearly cried. I blurted out that I feel like I'm going to spontaneously combust and NO ONE has any maternity shorts. The girl just looked at me with wide, apologetic eyes.

I went to my car and speed-dialed my mom to vent. I'm hot, I feel like a Clydesdale horse (not saying I look like one, just feel like it), and all I want is a stupid pair of SHORTS. And WHY is all of the other clothing totally disgusting, like something that no self-respecting rhinoceros would even be caught dead wearing, let alone ME?

Well, my tale of woe does come to an end. I finally went to Kohl's. I normally get frustrated at Kohl's because often when I shop there the racks are haphazardly stuffed with clothing from different sections of the store...I'm not one of those patient people who can sift through racks and come up with a prize-winning outfit. But I was a hot, angry pregnant broad who was on a warpath for shorts. Alas, Kohl's became my anointed summer-wear savior this afternoon. I found two pairs of shorts AND a dress (all on sale!), all made by Motherhood Maternity, who has faithfully provided great clothes, great prices, and they're clothes that I would actually want to wear whether or not I'm pregnant. (I would have just gone to Grandville to the actually Motherhood store, but was on call for work and couldn't leave town.)

And now my world is peaceful again...and much cooler.

16 1/2 weeks!!

2010-05-22T06:44:00.000-07:00

Woot!!! Feeling pretty dang good (about 99% of the time). I listen to the baby's heartbeat on the doppler when I'm at work and it's a riot to hear him or her scooting all over the place. The heart's been a nice solid 150's.

Here's the tummy shot. Huh. When I see a picture of myself I realize I'm showing more than I think. Still able to stuff myself in some of my regular clothes, but not for long. This skirt's becoming a staple (I have lots of capris and pants, but no shorts, so the skirt it is for the warmer days for now)!!

WAY too funny

2010-05-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

I was proofreading the grammar entry for the umpteenth time when I found that in my section about apostrophes, I wrote apostrophe's!!!!!!! Now THAT is irony! Pick up my crown, bang out the dent, place it back on my head.